TradeTrip – Documents and Blockchain
When will blockchain finally break through? Still very much in early adopter stage and a chasm yet to breach before gaining wider acceptance, most blockchain initiatives remain stuck in pilot and POC mode. I asked Jacob Ninan, co-founder and Director of Kottackal Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd., why this is so? He believes that in part, there has been a perception that things work OK as they are and that there isn’t so much motivation to change. However, he thinks that the post-COVID world offers much greater potential for movement and he sees 2021/22 as the breakthrough period for blockchain.
Kottackal is the company behind TradeTrip, a blockchain initiative that involves digitalization of documents. Currently those documents include Bills of Lading, Certificates of Origin, Warehouse receipts and Letters of Credit. “More document types can and will be added,” he told me. The TradeTrip solution is designed to work via API’s with a clients existing ecosystem of commodity-focused applications to provide greater transparency, trust and fewer transactions around documentation through the supply chain – particularly those documents around custody transfer. The solution uses blockchain as well as 2D QR codes to identify scanned documents and deep learning-based text recognition to aid in transfer of document data to systems, he told us.
Currently the solution is being piloted by a company in Singapore and is part of a couple of accelerators in Singapore as well. Jacob sees the solution growing not just in terms of documents but also in terms of tracking cargoes and via the use of smart contracts, which could facilitate event-based activities like automating a payment on receipt of cargo. Eventually, he sees the solution providing end to end visibility into the supply chain and could add trading capabilities for in transit cargoes as well. However, for now, the company is seeking additional POC’s and pilots to firm up the product, he says.
Standardization and trust are the two biggest benefits behind the initiative, he says. The application features a full audit trail and history. It is meant to be utilized by the ecosystem of businesses involved in the supply chain as well including insurers, commodity traders, banks and so on. There is some competition in this use case as it seems a particularly appropriate use for blockchain, but he doesn’t yet see any live solutions. ComTech is aware of at least one other potential competitor in the metal’s repo space involving Rabo Bank, Concord Resources, AEON, Gen10 and PGS, for example.
We will track TradeTrip and see how they do going forward.
