BIMCO has published an Electronic Bill of Lading Standard for Bulk Shipping
Members may be interested to know that BIMCO has developed and published an eBL Standard for the bulk shipping sector to establish common industry standards for e-BLs. The aim is to help accelerate the digitalisation process. 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 eBL solution providers to download 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 available below on the Club's website.
Legal Briefing: Electronic Bills of Lading (ukpandi.com)
Electronic Bills of Lading - An Update Part I (ukpandi.com)
Electronic Bills of Lading - An Update: Part II (ukpandi.com)