Maersk to Wind Down Blockchain-Driven Digitalisation Platform TradeLens

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Thursday December 1, 2022

Container line AP Moller-Maersk is set to discontinue the TradeLens blockchain-enabled supply chain digitalisation platform it launched with IBM in 2018.

The platform will be retired by the end of the first quarter of 2023, Maersk said in a statement on its website on Tuesday.

"TradeLens was founded on the bold vision to make a leap in global supply chain digitization as an open and neutral industry platform," Rotem Hershko, head of business platforms at Maersk, said in the statement.

"Unfortunately, while we successfully developed a viable platform, the need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved.

"As a result, TradeLens has not reached the level of commercial viability necessary to continue work and meet the financial expectations as an independent business."

The platform was launched in 2018 at the height of optimism about what blockchain-based systems could do to bring transparency to supply chains across a range of industries. 

The system was designed to enhance customers' ability to track their containers, and expanded earlier this year to include trade finance documentation.