BIMCO has developed and published an Electronic Bill of Lading (eBL) Standard for the bulk shipping sector to establish common industry standards for e-BLs.
The aim is to help accelerate the digitalisation process, as it is currently not possible to transfer an eBL from one approved platform to another.
This lack of interoperability is a particular issue for trade finance banks wanting to transition from paper bills to eBLs and has been identified as one of the obstacles to the wider acceptance of eBLs.
The eBL Standard is a structured dataset consisting of 20 predefined data fields common to bulk shipping bills of lading, for example, CONGENBILL.
The underlying framework applies equally to BIMCO’s various bills of lading and other bulk bills of lading. The standard is freely available to any eBL solution provider and may be downloaded from BIMCO’s website.
To date, the International Group has approved for their Members’ use the eBL systems of the following providers; Bolero, CargoX, edoxOnline, essDOCS, e-Title, IQAX, TradeLens and WAVE. Additional information on eBLs is now available below on the Club website.
