The Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations in India (FFFAI) has launched India’s first smart and interactive electronic FIATA (International Federation of Freight Forwarders Association) Bill of Lading (e-FBL) initiative hosted on the CODEX platform for its members at its Diamond Jubilee celebration that took place on 09 June 2023 in Delhi, India. Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, unveiled the platform powered by Kale Logistics Solutions. The event also witnessed the presence of FIATA President Dr. Ivan Petrov.

The FIATA paperless Bill of Lading allows freight forwarders to easily issue a secured e-FBL through a seamless one-click process, thereby removing double data entry. Members of FFFAI can generate the bill in three distinct ways; API integration with internal systems to fetch the data into the platform, excel uploads or using an innovative machine learning interface to pull data from legacy PDF or scanned documents into the FIATA format with more than 95 pc accuracy.

The e-FBL initiative will be game-changing for the overall ecosystem as it will not only help in scaling large-scale automation and bring transparency but also offer end-to-end communication between stakeholders and eliminate security risks in the logistics ecosystem.

It is enriched with a smart QR code that allows users to establish the document’s integrity, security and accountability. Each FBL document is registered on an immutable ledger and can be verified at any time by all stakeholders interacting with the document.

This first-of-its-kind initiative by FFFAI will transform the overall ecosystem in India and push the country’s Ease of Doing Business and Logistics Performance Index ranks further to the top.

Shankar Shinde, Chairman, FFFAI & IFCBA said, “The main objective of FFFAI is to organise united action to promote the interests of each member and deploying the e-FBL initiative will ease business and logistics cost for our members. This initiative is also in alignment with the government’s vision of digital India and paperless trade.”

Vineet Malhotra, Co-Founder and Director of Kale Logistics Solutions said, “We are delighted to serve the members of FFFAI with our next-gen CODEX platform. The salient feature of our solution is standardised data exchange along with secured access capabilities. This will reduce nearly US$50 for each shipment with respect to documentation, courier and postage charges.”