CBSA Pilots IBM Maersk TradeLens Blockchain Solution

[On October 25, 2018] Maersk announced that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has agreed to pilot TradeLens, a blockchain-enabled digital shipping solution jointly developed by Maersk and IBM to promote more efficient and secure global trade.

To facilitate the flow of legitimate travellers and trade across the busy Canadian border, on an average day, the CBSA processes over 58,600 commercial releases, 14,400 trucks, 240,000 mail items, and 127,400 courier shipments, collecting more than $88,200,000 (CDN) in duty and taxes.

Like all global border agencies, the CBSA is constantly striving to increase efficiencies for the increasing number of people and commercial goods passing through Canada’s ports of entry, while upholding national security and public safety priorities. The CBSA is participating in the TradeLens pilot to determine what role the platform could play in its business processes. Ultimately, the goal for the Agency is to see if this type of solution can help improve the quality and timeliness of commercial data, increase visibility to cargo movement past the first port of arrival and reduce the number of transactions necessary to make a release decision for shipments.

“This development is an example of the Government of Canada using innovative technology to easily and securely facilitate trade and engage in global trading ecosystems in a modern, productive manner,” said John Ossowski, President, CBSA. “TradeLens could create a singular, trusted digital supply chain for all shipments entering Canada. The TradeLens pilot gives us an opportunity to not only find process efficiencies and gain analytical insights, but improve data providence, accuracy and targeting capabilities. The end result may be a faster and more reliable national supply chain, which could positively impact Canada’s economic output.”

Maersk and IBM have worked with dozens of shippers, ocean carriers, freight forwarders, port and terminal operators, and inland transportation and customs authorities to identify opportunities to prevent delays caused by documentation errors, information delays, and other impediments facing the industry. TradeLens participants can track critical import and export data in real-time with a secure, non-repudiable audit trail...

The TradeLens solution is available today through a Limited Availability offering. TradeLens is expected to be fully commercially available by the end of this year.

This was excerpted from 25 October 2018 press release by IBM.