Bolero’s e-bill of lading in pioneering trade finance project in Australasia
Bolero’s eBL in “significant first”
Swire Shipping, a provider of managed liner services, has achieved “a significant first” by accelerating a shipment of containerised grain from Australia to New Zealand, using electronic bills of lading (eBL) from Bolero International, a trade finance digitisation specialist.
According to Bolero, the transaction was the first use of its eBL by Swire Shipping and the first on the Australia-New Zealand route. It was completed through collaboration with BSM, which specialises in the optimisation of trade execution business process including communication, compliance and document management.
The shipment conducted under open account, from Sydney and Newcastle to Tauranga, was undertaken on behalf of Cargill Australia, a major provider of grain, oilseeds and other agricultural commodities. Cargill Australia employs BSM for trade execution and Bolero for multi-party electronic document presentation (e-presentation). This solution combines BSM’s trade execution tools and Bolero’s legal framework, eBLs and other digitised trade documents to deliver “major savings in time and costs” for Cargill Australia.
Swire Shipping and Cargill Australia are now deploying eBLs to accelerate shipments of grain to the Solomon Islands from Australia. “The adoption of paperless trade documents not only delivers major advantages in terms of speed, accuracy and security, but places companies at the forefront of a major trend as important trade and regulatory documents such as phytosanitary certificates are digitised,” Bolero states.
Jeremy Sutton, General Manager, Swire Shipping, comments: “We have been impressed with the substantial gains in speed of execution, simplicity of use and security Bolero has delivered for our customer and our use of the solution is set to expand as a result. We see this as the first of many transactions on the Bolero platform.”
Robert Flemming, MD of BSM, is confident that the partnership with Bolero will “go from strength to strength”.
“In every market, exporters, importers and shipping lines understand that paper belongs to the past and that digitisation is driving the efficiency of trade into the future,” concludes Ian Kerr, Bolero’s CEO.
