The International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with essDOCS to create a framework for further cooperation between the two in digitising Bills of Lading.
FIATA will introduce an electronic FIATA Bill of Lading (eFBL) to offer safe and efficient paperless trade. As part of the plan, FIATA’s Advisory Body Information Technology will digitise FIATA documents, starting with the eFBL and then the electronic House Bill of Lading (eHBL issued by NVOCCs) along with other FIATA documents.
Five FIATA Association Members from will take part in the pilot project to test the new CargoDocs-customized FIATA system, to move to a paperless environment.
Specifically, the pilots will be conducted in 3 phases. For starters, FIATA operators will replace their current printing of FBLs with an online tool housed within essDOCS’ secure hosted servers.
Members will be able to either draft their FBL online, and share it with their shipper before it is printed and signed, or allow their shipper to draft their own FBL before being printed and signed. The FBLs will be printed onto blank FBL paper which will be distributed by FIATA and signed by FIATA NVOCCs.
The second phase of the project will add more security features, which will help identify fraudulent FBLs and will include operators’ own House Bills of Lading. In the third phase, FIATA will adopt fully electronic FIATA Bills of Lading (eFBL) or House Bills of Lading (eHBL).
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In October 2017 FIATA signed an MoU with GS1 to identify and include FIATA documents into a digital platform, using the GS1 global unique identification system.