TradeLens launched in August, and today, we are proud to announce that TradeLens is commercially available.
To mark the occasion, we'll reflect on how far we have come as a partnership, as an ecosystem community and as an industry; and then we'll consider the opportunities and work that still lies ahead.
When we envisioned TradeLens a few years ago, the goals were at once simple yet ambitious: to reduce the cost of global shipping, improve visibility across supply chains and eliminate inefficiencies stemming from paper-based processes. In short, to bring global supply chains into a more connected and digitized state — for everyone.
Over the past two years, we’ve made tremendous strides in building and scaling the solution. We’ve moved from concept and prototype to a solution that is open to supply chain partners around the world. We’ve also seen great adoption and participation from organizations around the world.
Scoular's commitment to increasing supply chain visibility and reducing documentation costs for our customers is exactly why we joined TradeLens.
Today more than 100 organizations are engaged with TradeLens, with over 60 network members including four ocean carriers, three inland carriers, 40 worldwide ports and terminals, and eight customs authorities spanning the globe.
Membership momentum isn't the only exciting news: Commercial availability comes with the ability to accept data from all ocean carriers on a customer-by-customer basis. This means that participants have more options for getting value from TradeLens and supporting their entire supply chain.
As members join and data is shared, the global shipping industry is realizing the benefits of TradeLens. We’ve never been more certain of the impact it will have in addressing:
We are convinced that joint work on a global scale is part of the key solutions to achieve a better flow of information and goods for the benefit of clients and partners.
The TradeLens offering now includes document sharing, which provides cutting-edge encryption to every document that is published. It also includes blockchain-based data storage with separate channels for major ocean carriers. No matter how sensitive the information, documents are treated with the utmost security and given the added long-term benefits of smart contract attributes.
Through the open API, TradeLens supports both structured documents, such as electronic bills of lading and unstructured documents such as scanned packing lists. This means no matter how complex a transaction, TradeLens is able to handle and manage workloads using blockchain. With document sharing also comes the ability to securely publish to a single platform with permissions given only to those who are a party to a consignment.
We’re also excited to release major advancements of TradeLens across the board:
We firmly believe that TradeLens will result in a much-needed, open, neutral and consistent standards-based solution for our industry. We're excited to be part of the process.
All parties in the global supply chain benefit from these advancements - shippers, 3PLs, carriers, terminals and more. Now that we’ve made TradeLens generally available, we’re focused on enabling easier and faster on-boarding to accommodate new ecosystem members.
If you’re not already involved, then please reach out and let’s start the discussion.
The global acceptance of eBL is in motion, how can MLETR and other legislative initiatives help?
We sat down with senior global trade experts, Diana Jones, Director of Solution Architecture, and Juanjo Ruiz, Strategy and Business Development at TradeLens to discuss the proliferation of electronic bills of lading (eBL) and the disruption of blockchain as an emerging technology with a substantial opportunity to support banks with unlocking a $3.4 trillion trade gap in the trade finance market. The following is a Q&A on these topics.
Bangladesh/Hong Kong – Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) Asia Pacific has completed its first pilot paperless trade finance transaction using the TradeLens platform. Leveraging blockchain technology supplied by TradeLens, the pilot illustrates the effectiveness of the technology to improve supply chain efficiency by significantly reducing document processing lead times.