MOL Joins Blockchain Consortium
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Monday, August 28, 2017
Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) has announced its determination to participate in the "Consortium to develop trade data sharing platform using blockchain technology," in which NTT DATA Corporation serves as the administrative office.
The consortium is comprised of 14 trade-related companies such as banking, insurance, total logistics providers and export/import companies.
Current trading practices rely heavily on bills of lading and other documents. This creates burdens such as additional time to complete procedures and requires additional labor and costs.
This program aims to increase convenience for customers by using blockchain technology to make information flow more smoothly through corporations and across business categories and making trade-related office procedures swifter and more efficient.
The formation of this consortium is Japan's first initiative on using blockchain technology on trade-related operations.
As stated in its "Rolling Plan 2017" management plan, MOL emphasizes closely monitoring trends in ICT technology and takes a proactive stance in introducing cutting-edge technologies.
Corporations representing trade-related industries in banking, insurance, total logistics, and import/export trade cluster to study measures to address issues crossing over corporations and business categories, through Proof of Concept aiming at practical ways to use blockchain technology to streamline the flow of trade information.