Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) has reached an industry-first in successfully unifying the consent, collection, and sharing of shipping data on the GSBN Data Sharing Management Application.
In collaboration with Bank of China (Hong Kong) (BOCHK), Hapag-Lloyd and A & W Food Service (Hong Kong) Ltd, the pilot transaction was completed in less than 20 minutes.
GSBN’s Data Sharing Management App offers a blockchain-enabled application which allows SMEs to easily provide consent via the app and instruct carriers to share verified shipping data.
With this consent, financial institutions can now gain access to a basket of trusted and immutable shipping data in a standardised and structured format.
With higher visibility, financial institutions can benefit from accurate and complete shipping data to make informed decisions and better manage risk.
Bertrand Chen, CEO at GSBN, said: “This pilot solves a major bottleneck in the industry and is a testament to the efficiency of the network in enabling trusted data sharing.
“Trade finance is the lifeblood of global trade, and we hope this milestone can further break down the silos between market participants and financial institutions to benefit all parties while supporting the overall growth of the industry.”
By supplying banks with trusted shipping data, the GSBN’s solution aims to facilitate approval process and make trade finance more accessible to corporates.
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According to the World Economic Forum, the global trade finance gap is widening and is estimated to reach $2.5 trillion by 2025.
GSBN notes that with an increasingly challenging economic environment, it has never been more important to increase the accessibility of trade finance. Critical to this is improving trusted data sharing across the supply chain with financial institutions.
In shipping, sharing of data is still largely blocked by the lack of consent.
Due to the complex nature of global supply chains, a single shipment can involve multiple parties, making it a challenge to obtain consent from the right party for carriers to release trusted shipping data.
Dr. Dirk Reiß, Senior Director, IT at Hapag-Lloyd, added: “Enabling trusted data sharing is essential to facilitating a smooth trade finance process and it has always been a huge challenge in the supply chain industry.
“As a shipping company committed to innovation, we are delighted to have completed this pilot transaction with GSBN’s platform around unifying consent collection and the sharing of shipping data.”
