 Hold on, I'm recording as well. So I'll go through the policy reading like getting out of time. Hold on, just a second guys. Linux Foundation meetings involve participation by industry competitors and it is the intention of the Linux Foundation to conduct all of its activities in accordance with applicable antitrust and competition laws. It is therefore extremely important that these adhered to meeting agendas and be aware of and not participate in any activities that are prohibited under applicable U.S. State Federal or foreign antitrust and competition laws. Examples of types of actions that are prohibited at Linux Foundation meetings and in connection with Linux Foundation activities are described in Linux Foundation antitrust policy. If you have questions about those matters, please contact your company council or if you are a member of the Linux Foundation feel free to contact Andrew of the growth of the Linux sorry of the firm of Gasmir of the Grove LLP which provides legal counsel to the Linux Foundation. Hyperledger is committed to creating safe and welcoming community for all. For more information please visit our Hyperledger Cut of Conduct. So welcome everybody to this meeting. It's my pleasure to introduce you all to public harvesting. It's from the Netherlands and you know it will give this meeting a focus on what's going on not only in terms of trade funds but also on trade in more general terms focusing on what's going on in Netherlands and northern Europe. So I would live it on to Bob to tell us about you know what he's doing and what his projects are. Bob? Yeah let me attempt to share my screen. Yeah please do. I hope you see it now. Yeah perfectly and hopefully you see the full slides. So yeah hello welcome. We're here all together because we're interested somehow in trade, trade finance and DOT blockchain. I will mutually interfere into change the words DOT and blockchain so I'm sorry for the purists but I'm going to do that. So yeah global trade, trade finance and logistics. Trade finance is very much depending on all kinds of triggers from the logistics so they're really intertwined. So I would like to have a little bit of a look at that today. So if you look at the challenges we currently face is that there's always a lack of trust in the whole supply chain. It's disconnected, non-standarized and unfortunately it's very much paper-based and it has a huge impact not only on the logistics but as well as the whole supply chain and therefore also the service of financial institutions provide with the help of trade finance. So if you look at that blockchain is basically a way to solve a lot of these worldwide supply chain problems but for all of the companies that are involved in the whole supply chain they have different value drivers. It could be that I would like to have more control about ownership, compliance. They want to know more about where the goods are so they were more interested in track and tracing or maybe they want to be able to share the data on a much easier way. Well blockchain can provide there of course a solution to that because it can build trust, it can enhance the transparency, its support to pay it, illustrate, therefore also it can reduce costs but at the same time it creates all kinds of new opportunities and especially financing, especially the smaller companies. So we in the financial industry we are very much aware of this and there are many collaborations already going on using this technology but also within logistics to see the benefits of this very much. So some quotes from the past, for instance from the founder and chairman of FedEx that they really believe that blockchain will have a huge impact on supply chain transportation and logistics and that's also being mentioned by the CEO of Melomersk. Digitalization will help and also blockchain in this case will help and of course we know all about that collaboration with IBM together in the initiative called TradeLens. So it's all about collaboration but what you see in the whole supply chain, even if there are the best intentions, there is a problem most of the times there is an incentive to do collaboration but at the same time not everybody wants to share that knowledge very well, they have opportunistic behavior, in that case most of the times there is a lack of commitment and the relationships are not always that stable so you have this instability and we have to also understand that this actually is still a business model to not collaborate. So we have a lot of problems we actually are facing. Technology can help but it's also in the mindset of the people all along in the supply chain to really make this happening. We need to be able to collaborate. So if you want to understand a little bit more about trade and the financing of trade, one of the best things actually is to follow the trade flows. Where are all your goods going? Where are the vessels? So you see if you look at any moment in time, for instance you can go to a ship tracker, you can follow all the types of vessels, the container ships, the oil vessels, you name it and you see there is a huge amount of goods being shipped over. About 80% of all global trade is actually seaboard. So that's a huge impact on all the supply chains and you can imagine one little problem in this whole supply chain is the effect of a grain of salt in your machinery and we recently actually saw an example of this sewage blockage and that has a huge impact on all the supply chains but also economically there's a huge impact. Well we saw a lot of vessels lying and waiting to be able to pass the sewage canal. Now it has been freed and all the ships are on the way. So now we're there actually on the way to maybe the next blockage point which are normally the ports and with that afterwards you have to hold supply chain after the port you have all the interland transportation. So there's a huge impact on all the blocks going forward. So I wouldn't like now, as André already mentioned, to focus a little bit more on a certain region in Northern Europe which is a world city with 30 million inhabitants. It's a European innovation hotspot. The capital of Europe is there in Brussels. It's a European gateway with three airports and three seaports. About eight universities are in the world of the top hundred and if you enlarge that to 150 there's actually 15 universities involved in that. So there's a lot of knowledge, a lot of innovation happening and together with the gateways we have our airports and the seaports there's a lot of innovation happening there as well. So now just assume that we do a simple customer journey. We are actually vessel and we're now on our way to the port and we're enter the port. So what we would like to see is like have this situation. There's free passage, there's a cave, all free for us, the crane's waiting to lift our containers. But yeah, before we are able to do so we have to understand that we're actually part of the ecosystem, a quite complicated ecosystem. We have to deal with the port authorities and operators. We have to deal with the terminals. We have to deal with customs. As a shipping line we're part of that ecosystem in this case. We have our Corco for our Corco orders and if it that we also have the logistic companies which are providing all the service to the hinterland that can be per truck, by rail or by barge. So before we actually enter the port we have to find, okay, are we allowed to get into port? Is the place for us at the cave? Is there a towing boat to help us to actually berth to the cave? Then is the terminal actually available for us to lift our containers? To bunker actually to gas us up? Maybe we need other provisions, food? We have to get loaded again and with that we have all this paperwork involved also. Well ports are really understood that and as an example I gave the port of Rotterdam but it's the same for the port of Elmverb. They understand that they have to focus more on digitization to be able to automate. So there are different stages if you look how the port of Rotterdam is looking at this. In the beginning there's no automation and you have all kinds of different steps. First you do some automation for waste of the port authority. So great, they have an integrated system for themselves but then they want to have the whole port community, the ecosystem involved. So then they have a nice port community system. They also want to integrate the hinterland with that. So there's more easy combination and communication with the help of the logistics providers as well as the cargo owners and in the end of course you don't want to see this as a simple entity on its own. You want to be connected with all the ports or at least the logistics hubs all over the world. So you have a very connected system. So with that you can create basically a complete digital twin. Not only a digital twin that you have sensors in the K that you understand what is the condition of my K but also that you can follow all the goods over your digital environment which is basically the port system as well as your hinterland and if it's all connected you can do it all globally. So with that you can understand exactly when a ship is coming in and provide all the communications and prepare all the next steps in the line if you'd be actually ready to be as efficient as possible because that is one of the things that Port of Rotterdam is focusing a lot on. They want to be the gateway of Europe therefore operational excellence is very important and you can only do that if you're fast efficient and of course you have to provide reliable safe and sustainable services. So there's a really smooth end-to-end flow. They have all kinds of services related to that, digital services that you can look at what is the estimated time of a rifle that you can order all kinds of bunk ridge if you need extra connections with rail you can all see that and at the same time all kinds of service related to navigation. What is the best way in order to get to the port when I do have the least CO2 emissions involved if I need an extra empty container? Where do I get that? Where is the most efficient way? Because theoretically an empty container should be shipped back to the port but maybe there is already an empty container next to you your neighbor is flying around when you're actually based in France so you can actually take advantage of that. So they create all kinds of services digital services to make the whole journey for me as a cargo owner in this case very efficient and all the participants as well to be less paper-based more digital and provide all kinds of services to make this whole journey very smooth and efficient because they have their area of the case but they don't want to be a storage. They want to be sure that when a ship comes the container hits actually lands that it's as quickly as possible moved to a stand the land and if you want to provide shipping services that the container comes into the port as shortly as possible before the vessel arrives and then being taken out from the port again. So you can assume that in the future actually based on the willingness of how much you want to pay and how much you're in the hurry you can actually maybe bring a container only a few hours before a ship really sails that the vessel comes to the location and then put on the ship and therefore being also having the chance to be unloaded as quickly as possible as well. So with that you have more efficiency. So one of the things which is this is all possible just with APIs in principle but in the case of container release there have been already a solution based on blockchain. It started with MSC and team mining in the port of Antwerp and is also now present in the port of Rotterdam. Container release is based first traditionally that a paper has been moved on and if you have that paper you can pick up the container while they started to digitize this with the help of a pin code around 10 years ago. So a pin code is attached to a container if you want to pick it up from the location you get this pin code and you can pick it up and you see like if I'm the car owner I get the pickup I use maybe logistics partner I send it over to pin code to somebody else maybe they use another trucking company that get that pin code. So this is something which is easily copyable and if you have actually this pin code you can just go and claim that container. So a lot of possibilities are fraud. So with the help of blockchain you can actually tokenize this right to pick up a container and if you move it actually towards another party which is this right to pick it up you can transfer the ownership. So this is one of the examples where blockchain DLT can provide a huge opportunity. Next to that before you actually can pick up a container you have to be a few conditions have to be met. First of all the container has to be there and has to be released by the terminal. Also the customs has to say this actually this container this cargo is cleared and next to that it has to be sure that there has been paid for. So also a payment trigger from the bank is important but if you have APIs this information can be automated in a smart contract. If it's been done then the ownership can be moved on to the target to the cargo. So this is an example where you can create trust with DLT blockchain as well as make sure that there's an efficient process going on with the help of this new technology. Well once I pick up this container again I'm back most of the time back to paper and especially with cargo on a truck. A lot of it is still down in consignment notes. You have a nice name for that CMR. It's a nice long French word for it which I always forget but it's basically a document which is passed on from the shipper which is basically the instruction to a carrier which then move it to the location and it has to be signed off and with that you actually can also do the invoicing for the shipment itself. Well Transfollow a company in the Netherlands has been also digitized in this and then with the help of a digital form which can be plated already with information which is already way before this step. You can automate it and populate it. You just have to check it with that. You have it on your mobile. You can plan it automatically much better. The handover is done on QR codes. You don't need the wet signature but if you want you can still sign on the screen as well. So it's a much more efficient way of dealing with it and with that it creates also a separate ecosystem and itself. If a carrier needs to pick up at a shipper it has been announced in advance so you can schedule it much better. You can actually automate it then. When it's been picked up and the carrier is on the way and has a delay the time of arrival at the end destination will be changed. Actually through this network it can also communicate that. So if you're awaiting a special delivery and all the logistics in the warehouse has to be arranged so that you can also adjust that immediately on a real-time basis. If something happens on the road an accident and one of the carriers is involved in it before the fire department is there it can also check which trucks are involved in it and is there a dangerous route to be involved. If yes what is then the loading. So it can be a whole new ecosystem where a lot of people involved in different ways which you cannot even envision in the beginning. They can share on a safe way information again which is basically being done also with the help of blockchain to make the whole supply chain visible. But if I leave the harbor there's another interesting thing going on that nowadays we have cameras and that can actually check for many different ways. They can check if this container is leaving the property so it gives you an extra trigger. Hey it's really being picked up and my cargo is on its way but that can also check if there is a damage from the container as well. If there is a damage you know maybe there is also damage on your goods and maybe you know that this container cannot be used in the future anymore. So it gives another opportunity to censor what is really going on. Well collaborative transformation is really what we need we need to collaborate as a mainstream before. So the recap what is now really the problem we have limited transparency which creates basically risks disruptions and a lot of waste in this case costs. So what we can do is adopt a new infrastructure to make this whole new international trade more digital create an ecosystem but if you now look at the ecosystem it's kind of scattered. We have all kinds of different pieces of the puzzle all differently with solutions with based on participants. It can be only logistics only in trade finance. It can be on geography only in Europe or something only in Africa or only in Asia. Then it has different business value use cases but it can also be different technology or networks. It can be still cloud solution. It can be an on-premises solution as well at traditional database or it can be something based on DLT blockchain technology and it will be great if we can make this all inclusive and there blockchain can provide this means again that it's basically creating the rail to interconnect all of this not just the APIs because you have a lot of possibilities there as well already but with the blockchain technology you can provide there the extra layer of trust. This can really say like this is an event which happened at this time and everybody can verify it which is then very beneficial for the whole supply chain. So with that basically blockchain enables this inclusive ecosystem depending if you're a user, an insurance, a bank, a financial institution or a logistics supplier or on the other hand the importer, the exporter, the regulator. You use some kind of solution already which is out there. There can be a single window, it can be a logistics platform, provenance or something related to finance. All of this makes it all interactive with each other so it doesn't matter which solution you use. In principle you could use all the information and make it transparent through the whole supply chain but you already know that of course but the digital twin is the thing. Now we're all different entities with all different solutions and it will be great if we could create this one single view of this. So if you look at the digital twin, as an example you have here a normal trade from a seller to a buyer and if this guy's fluke for instance from the Incoterm SIF, cost insurance and freight. There are many things you can think about here. If we are actually the seller we can have all our documentation ready. We have a check where is the origin but also the quality and the quantity of the goods that has been in the container. We close it, there's a sensor on the outside so we know exactly when the door is being opened yes or no. There's information about the location of the container itself as well as the conditions within and we ship it. While we're shipping it all that information can already be shared with the party which is receiving it as well as the destination port. So in advance you can already do all the customs clearance. The information is there. In theory the customers don't have to open and check the container anymore and the goods because it has been checked in advance theoretically. So that can be a huge efficiency and time part as well as costs. At the same time that means that I as a cargo owner can pick it up much easier and much quicker and all of the transportation to me and my warehouse can be already planned in advance and if I get updates when a ship is being delayed I can actually adjust it the same as when a truck or a barge or a train at a later stage. But also if I think about financing in this case think about the documentary instrument, the documentary credits. Paperwork has to be sent over to the other side and before I can get hold of it I need to pay before. This is only because I want to be more in control of my goods and be sure of my payments. Well if the ownership of the container is being stored in blockchain we know there is an owner there. Together with the information of the location of the container I know exactly when it arrives at the destination port, when it's offloaded and heading decay, when it's actually passing customs and when it's being picked up. All these can be triggers to give me the notification okay I have been fulfilling my requirements for delivering the goods and this can trigger automatically already a payment and based on the payment I can already be paid before by my bank because they can also see the information and judge what is the performance risk of me getting and delivering it at the end as well as the payment risk at the end if I want to have my payment. So there are a lot of automation possibilities over there. So in the end blockchain enables us then to create this inclusive ecosystem create this digital twin and think about all kinds of innovative services. Well you talk about this already a lot in the Hyperlegic Group and you can contact me afterwards but if you want to understand a little bit more about logistics which is basically now I think if you want to understand your client and the service you want to provide on them in this case trade finance you have to understand the business of your client very well as well as the problems they are facing and therefore it's very interesting to find out what is happening in logistics but there are some nice movies which I share with you one of them is about the Netherlands and logistics especially related to the port we are very famous for our flowers but most of the flowers actually come from all over the world before we ship it over to the world again so you can follow that as well and some of you might know but I think most of you don't know where one of the second largest exporter of vegetables so we actually produce a lot but also export a lot as well as import but this is very nice to have that visible also they have made creating all kinds of nice data visualizations on that and with that I want to thank you for attention and I'm very interested in a nice discussion with you right now. Thanks Bob it was indeed very interesting presentation I thank you very much for this I look it on to the audience you know I have my own thoughts I have my own questions but I lived on to the attendance to make some questions to Bob it's an indication this this meeting is a little different compared to the others because it's mainly because on the logistics side of trade and trade finance of course. Andrea. Yes. Hi it's Eugenio and hi Bob and thank you for the presentation I actually have a comment or anyway a suggestion to share with all the audience here I think I mean the presentation got exactly one point that I loved particularly and it was related on on on on stressing the point on how it feels difficult for now to build a business case scenario a strong business case scenario that can support the in the later stage of commercialization of one solution and of course blockchain is a sports team and so as you correctly said different players with different access to the network with different capabilities to implement the network is required but at the same time I would ask you Bob if you can had maybe coming from your past experience if you want to share some some details about the process which helped you to build several business case scenario from financial perspective but also from an operational perspective I think this will be very interesting for me and thank you. Okay come to that as a financial institution we're left out of most of the information we're only part of a very small part of the whole process and most of it currently is still paper based so if we get more information out of logistics we can actually have more triggers of what is happening in the whole performance of delivering something with that you can have more data and do me risk mitigation measures much more and adjust models because currently if you look at the risk it's basically huge block for us right now which is always the same of course we don't know what's happening until something is finished if you get more information it's all kinds of small steps towards the delivery and with that at the end you only know then you have a payment issue if you want that so with that you can have the risk mitigations already with that if you have more information that means as a financial institution you can do a lot more automation because now a lot of the products the instruments we use for financing are still based on paper if you have more than information in a digital form you can perform much easier and much quicker your processes and with that you can basically turn down your costs and with that hopefully also provide much easier and even cheaper new financing instruments to your clients so these are basically all kinds of ingredients you can use in order to create a business test but a lot of it is yeah still unknown a lot of quick finger work and and assumptions but you have to monitor this you have to do some small experiments and yeah see how you can measure and if it has a benefit and then later on create a much larger investment in this and really put it into production so to say you have to start with small steps and to understand what is possible does that answer your question yeah yeah so I think that the key steps are having more information automation of the operation and cost saving reduction so these are the the main process of building the business case the at least the first business case okay and thank you yeah and I believe on top of that I believe also that you have to do this in collaboration of course and what you see is like there's a lot of collaboration with the same participants you know banks are doing a lot with banks so to say but I think it's much nicer to understand what is really happening in your ecosystem in your value chain by picking out other participants when I was working on a project called Deliver I was doing it together with the port of Rotterdam Samsung SDS which is the logistics as well as the IT department Samsung and the financial institution in this case Avi and Omro so we have all kinds of different perspectives we're not compared to each other and therefore get a much better understanding what's happening and what is required to be able to serve the whole ecosystem so also yeah cross industries I think is a multidisciplinary in this case is very important okay I understand sure and I agree thank you I was sorry about there was Fanny Montgomery here as Desens maybe he wants to make questions to Fanny he's still there ah yes I'm still here thank you very interesting webinar well actually I'm more interesting in the application in the real-case scenario but I already asked that so it will be great if there is more real-life scenario or application with related with what with the presentation provided you do see this already happening if we've in the port's ecosystem itself and our example I mentioned the straight lines which is helping a lot of automation with the help of the shipping lines and also all kinds of extras on top of that and they're looking more and more to the finance we have in the financial world a lot of initiatives based on blockchain which are looking also for linkage with the logistics because like what I mentioned a lot of the information is required to optimize the processes because if you think about it a lot of the events in the logistics part relate into documents which are then used for the financing so basically it's much more interesting to find immediately the event itself and to get the information about it than the document which is representing the event for instance shipping we have the bill of lading there's a lot of initiatives and digitizing this but it's basically yeah the shipment itself in this case it's also the title of ownership but you have a lot of these things happening as well an invoice is because you have provided a service so what is the service then and K actually proved that you did this service and with that for instance factoring becomes then also much easier you don't only get the invoice how much time needs to be paid but what has been done for that service and you can actually check that okay thank you really interesting yeah uh nils i see you raised your hands uh this is the first meeting and glad to see you here yeah yeah it is and uh it's quite a nice uh nice initiation uh it was very very good uh good uh good presentations and thanks a lot bob um yeah i like the the kind of scenario you sketched out about all the kind of the data sharing and i i i believe that if you yeah if you managed to to make you know more data more accessible it's kind of like a positive feedback loop of everybody sharing and everybody yeah giving back and creating more data um one thing that i mean i personally i don't have a lot of experience with the with trade lens itself like i'm not really sure what what it looks like exactly um i was just wondering if there are any barriers to kind of signing up um and how does it actually improve you know the the whole process uh i'm not especially some trade lines unfortunately i don't know much um it's mainly focusing currently on the the logistics and from the shipping lines providing it and then of course uh you as a cargo owner you're using the shipping lines and with that you should see more information in data sharing within the raw environment and now they're also looking into quotes kinds of financial positions over there so advice you just uh at least look at the website and there are some contact details there so you can reach out to them um what they did is basically yeah make the whole flow of all the steps which are in a logistics uh journey possible they make that possible uh for instance if a container has been uh uploaded and it's on a truck afterwards it also has to be checked for kinds of gases etc all those things uh the weighing of the container all those things are steps in the whole logistics plane uh stage and they make that visible and and possible to automate it and with that all the documents which are related to those events to be able to be shared easier okay that's uh that's interesting because uh i mean the reason that i that i ask this is because i mean personally i wrote a i wrote an article on on blockchain bills of lading um and uh one kind of main issue with uh with kind of creating a big enough network that it actually made a difference to digitize you know the bill of lading was the difficulty of signing in or signing up to you know a registry system um so i mean the first i think the first uh first step at least with the bill of lading which is you know a big part of the whole process yeah should be to make this uh as low barrier to entry as as possible um so i guess at some point maybe trade lens or other other companies organizations will make this as possible i know there's a couple a couple we're actually doing it right now cargo x is somebody who i think uh so i wrote my article on on ethereum bill of lading and uh then i then i looked it up and cargo x is actually a company which which is doing that so they built an interesting thing other examples are bolero as dogs uh you have wave uh they're only uh yeah part of this creating a digital version of the bill of lading and they create their own ecosystem based around special rules currently because there is no central law with everybody obeys within our world to accept this unfortunately but there are a lot of initiative working on this and um there's a lot of progress thank god but we're not there yet yeah now my article was uh was focusing on the model law and electronic transferable records so exactly that that kind of law so i think first first step would be for or one of the big steps would be for countries to adopt this into their into their local law and then make all these all these things possible because without legal certainty there's you know there's not going to be a lot of process and then we need the support from the icc w2o uh and you name it yes thanks thanks niels uh thanks for the insights and thanks for the answers uh i have my own question bob if you allow me to uh we're talking about you know ports port arrival also about uh uh there are of course different actors involved in the whole chain uh with different technology levels uh if you think you know this is a to me this is a major bottleneck in the whole picture uh how do you see in perspective in the next years how do you think this can be solved i mean a technological point of view of course rough down here's some kind of uh the excellence in the picture that i'll of course some other ports connected to the do not reach the same level what do you think can be done in the future so this problem which can be a problem achieving all of automatization out there of the process shipping and trading plans as well in all of this connected i think we all have to understand what are the benefits and we have to promote what are the benefits of digitization um a lot of participants in all supply chain uh do understand what are the possibilities there uh cofit also uh made that very clear unfortunately then you also see that only the larger companies having the means in order to make this thing uh i gave the example of the consignment nodes of transfollow the ECMR a lot of the trucking companies do understand what are the possibilities and the benefits of this but they already have a very low margin they've currently difficulty to find cargo they're fighting for it uh brexit doesn't help for instance as well uh so they don't have the means to make this transformation so they need some extra cash financial institutions unfortunately they look at what is the credit pressure related this company they currently are not doing well on the balance sheet and therefore we don't want to provide them in finance but yeah you have to think a little bit differently that if you really help them to make this transition to make it more digital they are better able to do their performance the services they can drop their costs internally so they have more money available for themselves and therefore also can repay maybe financing you provide them so uh i think from the financial institutions you have to think a little bit more in a different mindset and help the transformation of a company and this is just an example for instance a trucking company but this is related with the ports as well and all the players in the whole supply chain and what you also see is like a lot of services which are now developed digitally for one certain port can actually be sold as a service to another port so helping each other by providing these services helps as well as the mindset that we need to invest a little bit more and think that it has a benefit overall instead of looking at the short term you have to look a little bit more in the long term but it's easy for me to say i'm a i'm a believer in this uh but sometimes people are more looking at uh hard facts and a short term and then it becomes very difficult then this is the attitude that i know this generally you know you see that you reason you start arguing the the short term and you don't think about the needle and long term of course because just masses they have already invested legacy systems you know and they have already done the investment and now to invest even more some kind of treatment for them i was thinking also you know when you were talking we're talking about data we're talking about digitalization there's a whole step there's a first step in the picture you mentioned maybe which is the customs process how to involve sorry institutions in this picture because their socks stuck on paper that paper is picture they do want to see which papers don't want to see maybe even more papers than a normal range so how to get them convinced and that's really okay let's go for data instead and step in the zone frictionless seamless procedures that that's understanding i mean that that's brainstorming because you know being within the industry for a long time you see you notice how these institutions can create problems but not only customs clearance i think about you know those institutions that has to release documents they do it still in a paper-based format think about certificate of origin think about the year one model think about all those forms from B from C to China India there still are only one of these forms nothing more than these so we're talking about inclusive and kerosene approach but all those institutions ready at present to go for full digital process i think they're ready but you have to yeah still convince them they understand most of times the possibilities they also found out themselves now with the help of the pandemic the COVID-19 actually that human interaction has been not so easily possible therefore the paper is not the best solution either so they do understand that and have been releasing few of the hard requirements but as things are getting back to normal they pick those up again so if you are part of a digitization and transformation in that perspective then a new solution that's very important to include them as quickly as possible do a small experiment with them let them test and experience how it is and help them to understand what are really the benefits if they really recognize it that will support you of course that might be willing and the mindset is that but then you still have the regulations within certain countries which is stopping them still so you also have to help them to move forward how they can change the regulations so that is quite troublesome it's a many step process and probably also not something you can do in months but you think unfortunately a bit of a longer period of time but it's very important to get them on board as quickly as possible if you want to do something related to transformation and digitization in the whole supply chain and get their support I'll leave the game to the audience I'm to the audience do you make more questions if you haven't doubt about base what we're talking about Rossi I'm in a room up from you I see you in the audience Rossi there yes Andrea just one comment there are a few countries that are picking up on the UN Citroen rules and a legislating electronic bills of loading the most recent was Singapore I think it's up to three but their challenges are that you know you need many much more saturation of the market to adopt you know fully electronic processes and that that's a ongoing challenge has been running for many years and it looks like there's a few more years to go but there is progress and I thought I'd mentioned that it certainly is and I think the best way to do it is to try to make a green lane a digital trade lane possible show what are really the benefits and the possibilities over there and then if that's very clear and visible all the others will follow as well and with that it's not only between countries because a certain trade lightning is basically a connecting point to a whole region so therefore more and more countries will benefit from it yeah exactly it's like success breed success and everybody wants not to be the first but they don't want to be the second and that's the challenge true yeah if I may offer a comment this is Tat Yin at the moment as far as I know there are six container lines that have the abuse of lading issued subject to Singapore law and it's also my understanding that you know such bills are lading subject to Singapore law would have you know would carry along with with them recognition of an electronic bill or lading should they be issued electronically so so I guess even for shipping lines that are headquartered in other parts of the world if they wanted to have legal certainty for electronic form of their bills are lading and they could actually consider making their electronic bills are lading subject to Singapore law yeah so so this is just a thought that I'd like to share it is true I've fortunately I think there is a lot of attention currently only for the bill of lading I think yes it's very important as a document itself and to flow information to make more visible but it's something that happens only between two points in the whole supply chain and there's so many more actors which have a huge impact also on the efficiency the cost etc so I think you should also focus on those things not just on the bill of lading but that's a personal fault yeah yeah you're so right you know in fact in fact two-thirds of sea shipments are not issued bills are lading they're issued seaway bills and more than half of all seaway bills are electronic but we don't we don't see attention being paid you know to how banks might interact with electronic seaway bills the same can be said of airway bills right more than two-thirds of airway bills today according to IETA are electronic but we don't see any effort you know to work with airway bills and I don't know I don't know what effort there is to work with ECMRs in Europe but it is quite extensive actually ECMR right right so so I guess I guess my comment is linked to to things from a financing perspective and trade finance if we believe WTO figures you know they estimate that 80 to 90 percent of world trade is is trade financed right so so when we discuss digitalization it's it's always important to to think of how trade finance is to be done using you know the the the benefits of digitization it's important to to articulate and and to create you know ways for trade financiers to be able to work in in in a digital fashion with with the digital documents or electronic records so so I think I think it is very important when when we look at all these various types of electronic transport documents that banks and non-bank financiers be engaged to to kind of create a practice on on on the provision of finance using electronic versions of these documents otherwise what we would see is that you know for for the portions of trade which receive financing from banks those are the parts of trade where paper would continue to be required I fully agree in that perspective shorty meals therefore I mentioned one of the examples that you can do and think completely thinking about trade finance I think you want to do financing trade that's what we have to do for the transformation and now we have instruments especially if you think about the documentary what which are really depending on these documents supply chain finance is more looking in the triggers coming from the logistics environment and with all this new technology together with iot you can get more information and different checker points so you have to think about what is the client really interested in to choose a certain financing instruments they want to have more control of the goods they want to have security about payment so what can you use information which is currently in a digital form where you feel like you're confident with and you still have enough risk mitigations so to say that you still can provide another type of means of financing then depending on what we already do for the last 200 years I think that is also the mindset and the transformation we as a financial institution as an example should also go into yeah yeah it's great that you'll bring up supply chain finance and that's that's one area of trade finance which which is highly digitized today and you know and and much of it actually happens on fully digitized basis and and that's possible because the financiers are looking at just one piece of information for their financing decision which is the receivables now other payables right or the invoice information exactly yeah that's that's a shift in mindset as well that's it thanks for for your insights that's in all those I appreciate uh there was uh those again want to thank you I'm using the zoom zoom functions but um but um yeah no I just wanted to say that uh that that it's it's true that you know that the C-way bill and the airway bill they're yeah they're indeed uh documents that are used but the difference between between the two is that um the bill relating I think it's particularly focused on because it's a it's a document of title which means that if you have that document if you can claim possession um that means that uh that you have the right to the goods uh whereas I think in the way bills you just need to prove that you are the person listed in in the way bill um so I think that's why I think the bill that is focused on um so you could say that I think digitizing the the C-way bill uh and and that would be good for you know for data which which I think is probably a valuable proposition as well um but it it doesn't you know it it's not capable of acting as um for example collateral to uh to letters of credit which is also a significant area of I think digitalization or where where that could definitely become a a positive process um so actually um yep well I mean you work for ABN AMRO do you know anything about the uh the letters of credit um process and how how blockchain could could maybe make that more more efficient oh yeah there are many uh uh uh platforms working on that one of them example is Contour it's actually a blockchain solution uh it's a bank consortium officially where it started with and they're focusing really on digitization the letter of credit and the process on it okay yeah that's interesting I mean um yeah you you think that with with smart contracts you'd be able to kind of digitize the whole uh you know proof that you have whatever enough enough balance in your in your bank account um so yeah maybe maybe an interesting uh point of further discussion at some point yeah and another example which is more focusing currently still on the commodity trade finance is Congo is another platform which provides the services related to finance and I think the the more traditional uh trade finance vendors are looking also more in the technology uh and use that in their solutions thanks thanks for mentioning my name Bob yeah I just it's an interesting it's an interesting uh I like the webinar a lot gives me a bit more detailed insight in the logistics in it sort of what happens on the physical supply chain but there is indeed I think a challenge actually the biggest challenge is connecting the dots you know that's what we ultimately want to do a business case is connecting existing dots and uh and there are many dots and um I think we are we are picking out some of them and and one of them I just put a link there normally I'm not that marketing oriented but I said that yeah I'll put it in anyway for those people are interested we are we are working on a development right now to to bring two dots together and and the EBL as a document of title is is a key one uh and we're trying to solve actually the fundamental challenge in trade um supplier wants to make sure it gets paid the buyer wants to make sure he gets delivered what he ordered that trade is about and how can you bring those two requirements together in the most simple way but how can you combine a financial commitment and a uh a physical commitment in terms of delivering goods together and we we are we we've created we we're developing a business case where we can do that in full digital fashion so instead of being dependent on a physical delivery of documents we're doing a full digital quick quid pro quo uh an acceptance of a digital bill of exchange uh against a digital transfer of ownership of a two order bill of lading so we're working with two uh EBL providers I think they are on this call I've seen Bolero and I've seen cargo X uh they're going to help us uh on the transfer of ownership of the document and we're working with an ego to actually handle the financial aspect to to actually create a digital acceptance of a bill of exchange and we're doing that in a full digital fashion so not to be dependent on any physical delivery uh so uh that's something we're currently working on this article sort of describes that because it's like I said there's many business cases but this is one ultimately like Tatine also explained we are mainly looking at from a financial point of view how can we sort of inject trade finance into logistical processes and there you have to sort of connect the dots and we've picked out two and uh the good thing about and that's where Janeo uh also uh is the remarks are relevant the good thing about on on the financial side that the technology we're using is complied with model on electronic transferable records which is gradually being adopted uh ADGM Abu Dhabi just adopted it as well and as Tatine also correctly described you do not have to be physically located in a certain jurisdiction to adopt the law so what could what could happen is that some organization may decide to start issuing certain instruments subject to legislation of a certain jurisdiction so you can do transactions uh subject to certain law you can adopt ADGM law which which which aims to go for MLTR compliance uh without actually being physically located there so I think there's going to be we're at the start of this year there's still many hurdles I don't want to simplify because it is not simple but we have to it's our job as solution providers to actually show the way even though there's today still legal challenges but if we do not put the creativity to show what we can do yes we are not the ones we will be China citizens will not be the ones crossing the legal hurdles it's not going to be us it's going to be the issuers of those documents and the process of those transactions but we we're not going to wait until the gates will fully open we have to also it's our duty to also start showing where dots can be efficiently connected and where we can collaboratively establish workflows between different participants of a trade flow that's our job and I think Joel you mentioned a very nice example of connecting your dots collaborating with many different players in the supply chain and although it's just still just a few uh yeah it's the start you have to do something and hopefully we are able to connect all of the dots together and you find out that blockchain or dirty is actually the utility in order to achieve that yeah I agree but we have to talk with really realistic business case uh you know something where we can say look it works because you could the slides on a thousand things but we really we only pick our things that we can demonstrate and demonstrate them pretty quickly and that's one of the cases this we've called it the epu which is an electronic payment undertaking which is also similar to BAFTS DLPC distributed ledger payment commitment but then from an interface point of view it's the legal instrument development in partnership with Sullivan partners uh which aims to replace sort of well provide an equivalent a digital equivalent of a promissory note and a bit of exchange but in a digital format so that's where we're using an ego and on the EBL side we work with any partner actually that we're not exclusive you know we but we work with partners that want to move quickly because on the EBL side I expect at some point where you have rule books and that's related to what Neil said there is still a hurdle if you if you're a big company there's about six seven EBL providers today what I expect is an IATA with the e-airway bill has achieved something you know it has moved to a multilateral level the same thing will have to be done is going to happen with EBLs the agreements will have to move to a level above the closed ecosystems but of course today I understand the EBL providers you cannot wait till that happens they have to meet business requirements today however in the future it would make sense that the rule book shifts to a higher level that that you actually that agreements can be established for participants to trade documents at a higher level not at as long as I digital identity is not 100% portable across ecosystems something will need to be established at a higher level but that's a matter of time thanks Joe thanks for the interview you forced me what yeah you forced me to say something no I'm kidding I'm kidding Andrea no no no no worries I think we're running out of time actually now Julian you want something to the discussion from your side as well Julian are you there I'm there no I think that was an excellent talk thank you Bob thank you Joe thank you everybody I think that was a I think we've run out of time but that was a I think we need more of this absolutely so I'd love to thank Bob for this for this very interesting meeting and you know thank you for the opportunity and actually thank you for everybody afterwards for this fantastic discussion we have and what you've mentioned before by Julian should do this much more it's important to move forward perfect I'll wait for you over the next meeting in a week's time and see you soon thanks for for being here thanks Bob thanks everybody cheers take care thank you thank you bye