An announcement has been made about a successful trade made by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia through its newly created blockchain platform. As part of a blockchain experiment, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia together with five domestic and overseas supply chain leaders have tracked and traded 17 tons of Almonds that were en-route to Hamburg, Germany from Melbourne, Australia. This tracking and trading was done using the blockchain. The players involved in this experiment saw the blockchain platform digitize three aspects of the trade. The operations part, the finance part and the documentation part of the trade.
The digitization of these three elements is further illustrated by the completion of tasks which represents the finance part, the storage of container information digitally representing the operations part and the shipping of documentation digitally. The partners were also able to track and view the location of the shipment from Sunraysia located in Victoria, Australia to Hamburg, Germany, while also viewing the shipment container’s conditions such as humidity, and temperature. All this is enabled by the Internet of things technology (IoT). The CBA’S new platform seeks to improve a number of aspects about the supply chain and will be powered by distributed ledger technology (DLT), smart contracts and the internet of things (IoT).
Data provided by these technologies helped the participants in the supply chain benefit from increased efficiency and greater transparency regarding the condition, location and authentication of goods in transit as noted by the CBA. The experiment provided participants with a chance to have a feel of the technology since they were able to upload and have access to supply chain documents such as the bill of lading, certificates of origin, and other necessary documents through the Ethereum based blockchain. In order to have a real-time comparative scenario, the tests were run parallel to existing processes.
The managing director of industrials and logistics at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Chris Scougall, stated that the bank’s new blockchain platform experiment made it possible to have a modern and improved global supply chain system that is agile, transparent and efficient. He further expressed confidence that the blockchain had the ability to ease the strain caused by business administration free up time and energy for businesses to deliver the best services to their customers. The five supply chain top industry players that were involved in the blockchain experiment were; pacific national for rail haulage, port landlord Melbourne, Olam orchards of Australia, OOCL Limited, and Stevedore Patrick Terminals.
The shipping of Almonds enjoyed hard and software support from LX group, an Australian IoT provider. This latest experiment is only the latest carried out by the CBA. Two years ago, the bank teamed up with Wells Fargo as well as Brighann Cotton to execute a trade between two banks using the blockchain and smart contract technologies. They didn’t stop there, with the bank unveiling an unprecedented “crypto-bond” last year, which sought to raise funds through the issuance of bonds on the blockchain.
