Surecomp  announced that it is partnering with WaveBL, a blockchain based digital platform, to further enhance digital trade finance workflows by enabling access to electronic bills of lading in its fintech hub RIVO™.

By integrating WaveBL’s capabilities into Surecomp’s collaborative trade finance platform, financial institutions and corporates alike will be able to receive and manage electronic bills of lading to cut costs and save valuable time. By enabling swift, encrypted, and authenticated transfer of digital trade documents, RIVO can enhance efficiency and optimize customer service, to transform trade finance processes.

Presenting documents under a letter of credit such as the bill of lading is still a predominantly paper-based process. Together with other trade documents, corporates are required to physically receive the bills of lading from the shipping companies and send it to their banks, which is a costly process that can take up to weeks to complete. WaveBL is already connected to several of the largest container shipping companies in the world, such as MSC, Hapag-Lloyd, ZIM and ONE. Having the ability to connect to bills of lading providers such as WaveBL, and share the data with their banks on their trade finance management platform, will add value in the form of transparency, efficiency, and cost effectiveness.

All associated parties – such as the buyer, seller, issuing bank and advising bank – can now digitally sign and exchange unique, original documents to eliminate courier costs, risk of fraud and penalty fees incurred at dock, to drastically improve overall customer experience, environmental sustainability and business resilience. It will add visibility and ease the document checking process for banks.

“By removing barriers and facilitating collaboration to drive a more streamlined, sustainable global trade finance process, RIVO allows any exporter to now access, manage and transfer ownership of its bills of lading electronically,” explains Enno-Burghard Weitzel, Surecomp’s SVP of Strategy, Digitisation and Business Development. “Our digital fintech hub RIVO is designed to bring together best of breed solutions to help customers streamline their trade finance management and workflow. Our partnership with WaveBL will afford our customers greater transparency, data accuracy and a much smoother document checking process, expediting a previously very tedious and time-consuming workflow.”

WaveBL’s VP Business Development, Ofer Ein Bar, shares, “This partnership is a win-win alliance that will radically drive forward the transformation of trade whilst rapidly increasing trade efficiency. It marks a key milestone in our mission to truly transform trade; including the streamlining of crucial trade finance flows.”