Federated trade ecosystems: Making digital trade talk

When digitalisation isn’t enough

A buyer’s electronic invoice may arrive at a bank whose system cannot interpret it, while a freight forwarder’s digital transport document may not be recognised by the consignee’s platform. Even when all parties have digitalised their processes, transactions can still stall because systems, standards, and trust rules do not yet align across ecosystems.

This is Part 1 of a two-part guide to why digital trade platforms don’t talk to each other, and what the industry is doing about it. Part 1 looks at where the fragmentation comes from and what’s already tried, including one of the most closely watched failures in the space. Part 2 explains the alternative that’s emerging – a federated trade ecosystem – how it works, who’s building it, and what practitioners can do about it now.

From digital silos to a federated nervous system: Why digital trade platforms don’t talk to each other

Two fully digitalised counterparties can still be unable to exchange a single document. This is the everyday reality of cross-border trade: a buyer’s platform and their bank’s platform speak different technical dialects, apply different legal assumptions about what counts as an original document, and have no shared way of verifying each other’s reliability. The result, according to the ICC Digital Standards Initiative (DSI), is a landscape of isolated initiatives that risk creating new digital silos rather than a connected system.

The fragmentation trifecta: Tech, law, and trust

The fragmentation stems from three interconnected barriers:

• Technical barriers. Different platforms use proprietary data formats, APIs, and verification methods. UN/CEFACT has developed open semantic standards and the Multimodal Transport Reference Data Model (MMT RDM) to enable interoperability, but adoption remains uneven. Platforms encode the same document, an electronic bill of lading (eBL), in incompatible ways. One platform may use a proprietary tokenisation system for ownership transfer, while another expects a signed PDF plus bank endorsement.
  
  
• Legal barriers. The legal status of electronic documents varies by jurisdiction. The UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) provides a framework for legal equivalence between control of an electronic record and possession of a paper document, but not all countries have adopted it. This creates a patchwork in which an eBL legally valid in one jurisdiction may not be recognised in another. The principle of “functional equivalence” is applied differently across legal systems.
  
  
• Commercial barriers. In an industry built on competing commercial actors, stakeholders have limited incentive to route their data through a rival’s infrastructure. The result is a “walled garden” approach where platforms lock in users rather than enabling open exchange.  

Closed platforms, paper documents: The interoperability gap

This is not for lack of effort. TradeLens, the blockchain-based platform built by Maersk and IBM from 2018, set out to become a single, neutral industry-wide network for shipping documentation. By 2022, Maersk and IBM curtailed the initiative, stating that “the need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved” and that the platform had not reached commercial viability as an independent business. Industry analyses emphasise that limited participation by key players was a core challenge. TradeLens is widely cited as evidence that a single-platform model, however well engineered, struggles to gain broad and lasting adoption.

Today’s default is not one platform but many closed ones. The Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) notes that cross-provider exchange of eBLs remains limited in practice and that most solutions require all parties to be onboarded to the same platform, though multiple interoperability efforts are now seeking to address this. The scale of the underlying paper problem remains large, with a 2024 survey by the FIT Alliance, conducted with the Boston Consulting Group and the HKUST Li & Fung Supply Chain Institute [12], finding that overall eBL adoption rose from 33.0% of respondents in 2022 to 49.2% in 2024, meaning roughly half of surveyed users still rely on paper alone, even for one of trade’s most digitised document types. The survey also found that 71.2% of respondents identified technological and platform interoperability concerns as a key barrier to adoption.

One platform to rule them all? Not quite.

A shipper on Platform A issues an eBL to a consignee’s bank on Platform B. Platform A encodes ownership transfer through proprietary tokenisation; Platform B expects a signed PDF with a bank endorsement. The carrier on Platform C, responsible for surrendering the goods, cannot verify the document because it lacks access to Platform A’s trust registry. The result is that the transaction reverts to paper, requiring manual reconciliation across all three platforms. Each party operates digitally, yet none can complete the transaction electronically.

The third way: Federation over fragmentation

These experiences have encouraged industry bodies and legal reformers to look beyond both the single-platform model and continued fragmentation. Increasingly, attention has turned towards a federated approach, in which independent platforms can remain independent while still connecting with one another.

Connecting the dots: Bilateral, blueprint, or open?

Several models are emerging to bridge the gap:

• Bilateral integrations. Individual platforms forge direct, one-to-one connections through custom agreements. In March 2025, OOCL on the IQAX platform transferred an eBL to a customer on ICE CargoDocs using the GSBN blockchain as a secure registry, the first such cross-platform transaction in container shipping. However, relying on bespoke connections between individual platforms becomes increasingly difficult to scale across the wider trade ecosystem.
  
  
• Standards-based frameworks. The DCSA has developed a framework comprising three components: the Platform Interoperability (PINT) technical standard, the Control Tracking Registry (CTR) to safeguard against duplication, and the DCSA Standard Annex for eBL Platform Interoperability, which provides the legal foundation. In June 2026, five eBL providers (CargoX, edoxOnline, TradeGo, WaveBL, and eTEU) implemented this framework, creating a network for cross-platform eBL exchange.
  
  
• Open protocol initiatives. Frameworks like TradeTrust, an open-source framework developed by Singapore’s IMDA, enable portable verifiable documents that can move across platforms without requiring all parties to use the same system. TradeTrust aligns with W3C Verifiable Credentials and uses blockchain and cryptographic technologies to support document authenticity, integrity and the transfer of title across different platforms. Other initiatives, such as the International Trade & Forfaiting Association’s Digital Negotiable Instruments initiative, focus on digitising negotiable instruments such as bills of exchange and promissory notes.

Four pillars of federation: Standards, law, trust, and incentives

For federation to succeed, four elements must align:

• Standards. Open, shared technical standards such as UN/CEFACT CCL, DCSA PINT, and W3C Verifiable Credentials together with semantic standards such as the UN/CEFACT MMT RDM allow different systems to exchange and interpret information consistently and securely.
  
  
• Legal recognition. Frameworks such as MLETR, the UK Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023, and other national reforms provide the legal foundation for functional equivalence between electronic and paper documents.
  
  
• Trust frameworks. Verifiable credentials, PKI, and trust registries enable platforms to establish and verify trust without requiring central coordination. The ICC DSI’s work on digital trust emphasises that “data can be verified, authenticated and securely exchanged across borders through globally recognised identifiers and trust services“.
  
  
• Business incentives. Federations must provide sufficient commercial benefit to justify the cost and effort of participation. This may come through more efficient processing, lower costs, or the ability to transact with a wider network of counterparties.

From blueprint to breakthrough: Will shipping finally connect the dots?

The ICC DSI roadmap argues that the frameworks and tools are already in place, but progress now depends on consistent execution and alignment across stakeholders. The challenge is therefore less about technology or legal recognition in isolation and more about coordination across the trade ecosystem. The DCSA interoperability framework has demonstrated that cross-platform eBL exchange is technically and legally achievable. The next step is to move beyond isolated or bespoke connections towards a federated network in which digital trade documents can move more readily between different platforms.