Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) has partnered with Blockchain company Waves to create a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform for processing and handling shipping document submissions. The system, already being tested, was able to reduce the processing and handling times from 7-10 days, to just 2.5 hours.

The first test was performed on a shipment of tuna from Mexico to Barcelona, Spain. Generally, such a purchase is completed using a letter of credit, which can often still involve manual checking of documents which would require at least a couple of weeks for full verification.

However, with the immutable nature of Blockchain technology, the company was able to verify and fully process the letter of credit digitally, with the power of Blockchain. According to Daniel Berenguer, Head of Digital Trade Finance in Client Solutions:

“The operation was registered and securely validated at the same time for all parties, thanks to the distributed ledgers and the immutability of Blockchain.”

This system will undoubtedly be adapted into other logistics arenas where validation at a fast pace is critical for business logistics.