Bertrand Chen, chief executive of, said the TradeLens cessation of operations of the logistics technology platform led by Maersk and IBM as the basis for development proves that the non-profit approach of the Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) connecting all parties in the shipping industry is the right path. And reiterated GSBN's strategy that data needs to be shared, but not a platform to monetize it.
On November 29,, the TradeLens team will take action to withdraw the product and terminate the platform, which is expected to be offline by the end of the first quarter of 2023. In this process, all parties involved will ensure that the customer's business is not affected.
Rotem Hershko, head of Maersk's business platform, said: "Unfortunately, although we have successfully developed the platform, it has not yet achieved the needs of all-round global industry collaboration, nor has it reached the level of commercial feasibility required to continue operating as an independent enterprise and meet financial expectations."
The TradeLens platform, jointly developed by Maersk and IBM in 2018, is a shipping logistics platform based on blockchain technology to promote more efficient and secure global trade.
Chen said GSBN has been focusing on two areas that are different from TradeLens: a non-profit model and a focus on providing system infrastructure rather than products.
March 2021, the Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) was successfully established and officially operated in Hong Kong, China, more than a year ago. GSBN has been firmly committed to its vision of promoting the digital transformation of the shipping industry through the establishment of a secure data exchange platform, and has continuously deepened its cooperation with relevant companies in the shipping industry.
In October this year, GSBM announced that it had reached an industry innovation milestone, successfully collecting authorization and sharing shipping data on GSBN's data sharing management application (GSBN Data Sharing Management Application).
Bertrand Chen introduced that since its official operation, GSBN has made three achievements in the exploration of digital transformation of shipping.
One is a paperless delivery project. At present, GSBN has implemented more than 1 million transactions in about 15 ports and 4 different regions, serving more than 10000 customers.
The second is the use of electronic bills of lading. In June of this year, GSBN announced that the electronic bill of lading system IQAX eBL, developed based on the GSBN blockchain platform API, has been approved by the International Group of Indemnities (IGP & I).
three is the introduction of trade finance products. In September last year, GSBN co-ordinated the establishment of a trade finance advisory group to jointly decide which data products GSBN will launch.
GSBN's data sharing management application uses blockchain technology to allow SMEs to easily authorize and instruct carriers to share verified shipping data. Once authorized, the financial institution can query the shipping data in a standard format. Since the data is recorded in the blockchain by the carrier, the data cannot be tampered with, greatly improving the credibility of the data.
With increased data transparency, financial institutions can benefit from accurate and complete shipping data for appropriate approvals and risk management. At the same time, by sharing data in a standard format, the foundation is gradually laid for the automatic review function, so that the review time of future financing applications is shortened from a few days to minutes.
Forwardernet.com