In an indigenous move, a 17-ton Australian cross-border shipment of almonds found its way from Australia to Germany. The first ever cross-border trade was carried out by state-backed Commonwealth Bank of Australia partnering with five logistics companies. It was held as an experiment to demonstrate that the DLT, smart contracts along with IoT can work as well as the traditional shipment methodology. Both blockchain and existing process of shipment were conducted parallel to assess the ease new technology can bring. By adopting the modernization, the global trade chain will become more agile, efficient and transparent as the paperwork and administration will significantly decline.
In the experiment of Australian cross-border shipments, various aspects of the global supply chain were monitored by the logistic companies that were involved in multiple levels of trade. As it became easy to upload and view the documents, the entire documentation procedure was streamlined. With the blockchain technology augmented with IoT, the operation, documentation, and finance were digitized reducing the time and effort that went into maintaining these.
The location of the shipment was viewed and tracked to the most exquisite details of temperature and humidity in the container that was containing almonds. The IoT devices were used to maintain the transparency of trade conditions. The data points of the Australian cross-border shipments journey were tracked for better planning and operations.
CBA prefer Ethereum blockchain for the project as it offered the right functionalities that were required. CBA will be building up a private blockchain on top of Ethereum blockchain and will have limited access to authorization rights. The conducted experiment offered more data access to the parties involved, but in future, the platform will be more restricted.
The CBA is taking blockchain as an opportunity to thrive upon to change the trend of the global supply chain for a more controlled and efficient process that will remain secure also.
