The technology group Wärtsilä has participated in an innovative co-creation project aimed at digitalising the Export Letter of Credit (L/C) process, which currently is handled manually and by email using paper documents and PDF files. The results of the experiment indicated clearly that physical documents can easily be replaced with secure and standardised data sets that enable automated processing. This is considered a breakthrough achievement.
In addition to Wärtsilä playing the role of an exporter, the other companies participating were SEB, acting as the L/C advising bank, Digital Living International which implemented the fully digital L/C document exchange based on Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra’s data sharing platform called IHAN testbed, and Nixu Corporation which supported the process with its cyber secure digital identity and security solutions. The purpose of the experiment was to show that corporate data sharing can be executed technically, functionally, with good governance, and without the fear of critical business information being misused.
“Wärtsilä is actively and continuously exploring opportunities to raise efficiency levels in all its activities, processes and dealings. As a global company, we are constantly handling commercial transactions with customers and banks around the world, and this experiment involving collaboration with qualified partners seeks to not only increase the efficiency of these dealings, but also to mitigate possible risk,” says Jarmo Nurmi, Corporate Treasurer at Wärtsilä.
The participating co-creators point out that a data-based system will make smoother market practices available, and that it is easy to implement and integrate with standard and open application programming interfaces (APIs) controlled by the data sharing and consent management mechanism. This eliminates the fear of data copying and its use without consented access.
The project was commenced in 2020 with planning based on design-thinking. While the experiment could only cover part of the overall L/C process, it was nevertheless able to determine that automated processing is possible within Trade Finance stakeholder systems. It also proved that this can be done in a platform, system, and process agnostic manner which can be gradually extended.
More detailed results of the experiment are available in this pdf file.
Media contacts for more information on this release:
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Mr Jarmo Nurmi
Corporate Treasurer
Group Treasury and Financial Services
Wärtsilä Corporation
Tel. +358 50 329 7029
jarmo.nurmi@wartsila.com
Ms Sari Luhanka
Manager, Global Media Relations
Wärtsilä Corporation
Tel. +358 10 709 5774
sari.luhanka@wartsila.com
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Mr Harri Rantanen
Business Developer
Transaction Services
SEB
Tel. +358 50 599 0367
harri.rantanen@seb.fi
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All Wärtsilä releases are available at https://www.wartsila.com/media/news-releases and at http://news.cision.com/wartsila-corporation where also the images can be downloaded.
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Wärtsilä in brief:
Wärtsilä is a global leader in smart technologies and complete lifecycle solutions for the marine and energy markets. By emphasising sustainable innovation, total efficiency and data analytics, Wärtsilä maximises the environmental and economic performance of the vessels and power plants of its customers. In 2020, Wärtsilä's net sales totalled EUR 4.6 billion with approximately 18,000 employees. The company has operations in over 200 locations in more than 70 countries around the world. Wärtsilä is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki. www.wartsila.com
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Project partners
SEB
SEB is a leading Nordic financial services group with a strong belief that entrepreneurial minds and innovative companies are key in creating a better world. SEB takes a long-term perspective and supports its customers in good times and bad. In Sweden and the Baltic countries, SEB offers financial advice and a wide range of financial services. In Denmark, Finland, Norway, Germany and the United Kingdom, the bank's operations have a strong focus on corporate and investment banking based on a full-service offering to corporate and institutional clients. The international nature of SEB's business is reflected in its presence in some 20 countries worldwide. On December 31, 2020, the Group's total assets amounted to SEK 3,040 billion while its assets under management totalled SEK 2,106 billion. The Group has around 15,000 employees.
https://sebgroup.com/
Sitra
Sitra is a future fund and an agent for societal change, with deep roots in the Finnish innovation field. As a public organization accountable to the Finnish Parliament, Sitra is a think tank, a futures workshop and a co-operative platform.
www.sitra.fi/en/
Digital Living International
Digital Living International is a leading expert on data productization, data sharing and connected data economy technologies. Our vision is to make life easier for companies and individuals by moving data fast and safely. We have been involved in more than 200 ecosystem driven digitalization projects in Finland and internationally which is the base for our technologies. Our concepts and data economy platform solutions have been used in e.g. in financial and real-estate sectors. We believe in open standardization as a base for the future data economy to which we contribute together with our partners.
https://digitalliving.fi/
Nixu
Nixu is a cybersecurity services company on a mission to keep the digital society running. Our passion is to help organizations embrace digitalization securely. Partnering with our clients we provide practical solutions for ensuring business continuity, an easy access to digital services and data protection. We aim to provide the best workplace to our team of about 400 cybersecurity professionals with a hands-on attitude. With Nordic roots we serve enterprise clients worldwide. Nixu shares are listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki stock exchange.
https://www.nixu.com/
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