Blockchain was fast gaining traction in the freight and logistics sector with the insurance industry now also on board, said Jason Freeman, director at JLT Marine SA.
“There is a huge drive in the insurance sector – in the London market in particular – towards blockchain which is at the core of disruptive technology.” Freeman said shipping lines were also increasingly pushing for these technologies, driving change across the industry at large. According to Louise Wiggett, Global Trade Solution (GTS) founder and managing director, it is the security offered within blockchain that is so appealing.
“Records cannot be altered and it is a consensus network that allows participants to audit and verify transactions inexpensively,” she said. Commenting on whether blockchains were hackable, she said theoretically it was possible to hack one of the distributed ledgers in a blockchain but it would have no impact as an effective hack required all of the ledgers to be hacked at the same time and that was impossible as the blockchain was infinite.
“In the shipping industry Maersk is a driving force in the use of blockchain technology. Having signed a deal with IBM there is just continued growth taking the concept forward,” she said. “There is no doubt that blockchain introduces very real benefits,” said Wiggett.” “Fast, secure access to end-to-end information across the supply chain, verifiable authentic information across all parties, trust across the organisational boundaries, better risk management and lower administrative cost.”
Not to mention overall lowering of costs. Global trade, estimated at around $1.8 trillion, could see potential savings of anything between 10% and 40% through improvement in the effectiveness in the supply chain.
There is a huge drive in the insurance sector towards blockchain. –Jason Freeman
