Alliance signs MoU on digital bill of lading

The Future International Trade (FIT) Alliance was established by the Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA), a neutral, non-profit group established to further digitalisation of container shipping technology standards, in conjunction with its nine member carriers.

The FIT Alliance aims to generate awareness about the importance of common and interoperable data standards and common legislative conditions across international jurisdictions and platforms. The Alliance wants to facilitate acceptance and adoption of an electronic bill of lading by regulators, banks and insurers and to unify communication between these organisations and customers, physical and contractual carriers, and all other stakeholders involved in an international trade transaction.

André Simha, MSC’s Global Chief Digital & Innovation Officer and DCSA Chairman, said: “MSC believes that for digitalisation to work at its best, everyone needs to be on board, working hand-in-hand establishing a common language, defined by the whole industry. It doesn’t just begin and end with containers; we need to look at the entire journey and create best practices that work for our customers all along the supply chain. By bringing together so many important trade associations, the FIT Alliance represents a major step forward, and it I’m excited to see the benefits that this collaboration will bring about.”

“The digitalisation of documentation for container shipments will add value for international suppliers who rely on shipping across sectors,” said David Loosley, Secretary General and CEO of BIMCO. “Aligning these standards with the electronic bill of lading standard for the dry and liquid bulk sectors, which we are developing with assistance from DCSA, will help accelerate the digitalisation of trade globally.”

“Interoperability between all actors of the trade and transport industry is the key foundation to enable smooth data exchange and to streamline the end-to-end shipping process for our members,” said Dr. Stephane Graber, FIATA Director General.

“FIATA, as the owner of the only negotiable multimodal transport document, endorsed by UNCTAD and ICC, is convinced that an industry-wide effort to establish open-source, interoperable, technology-agnostic standards is essential to make digitalization of international trade a reality. FIATA is committed to facilitating adoption of digital processes for freight-forwarders. We took the lead by developing the electronic FIATA Bill of Lading (eFBL) standard, which will further the acceptance of electronic documents by all stakeholders involved in a bill of lading (B/L) transaction. By simplifying their day-to-day business, our members will be able to focus on building truly differentiated offerings for their customers on top of future-proof digital foundations.”

“From the beginning, DCSA has understood the importance of cross-industry collaboration to achieve the elusive goal of universal eBL,” said Thomas Bagge, DCSA CEO. “The FIT Alliance is one exciting result of our ongoing effort to drive that collaboration. Container ships carry 90% of the world’s goods. As such, an incredibly diverse set of stakeholders touches the B/L transaction—from government regulators, to insurers, to shippers from every industry. To achieve widespread use of eBL, they must all be on board with adopting digital B/L standards. The agreement between DCSA and these diverse industry associations is an exciting milestone in our journey towards standardising all container shipping documentation through our eDocumentation initiative. We applaud the foresight and leadership of these organisations for joining us in the effort to bring greater transparency, efficiency, reliability and sustainability to the container shipping industry.”