Digitalisation offers the potential to help address challenges and gives market participants the opportunity to transform a system of global trade that has changed very little in the last century.  The move to electronic documents will empower our businesses with more efficient processes, more control, with instant transfer of cargo ownership, allowing for reliable collaboration between all participants in the chain.

With the UK Law changing such that electronic bills of lading have the same legal status as their paper equivalent, the time has come to move away from paper, embrace digital technologies for electronic documents and accelerate the transformation of global trade.

Memorandum of Understanding between Gafta and Electronic Platforms

The importance of electronic platforms is rising within the trade, and Gafta is dedicated to safeguarding the interests of members as new technology enters the market. It is essential to the industry that both Gafta and any new technologies reflect the needs of their businesses, so we have developed a model for working with electronic platform providers to foster and inform best practice.

This model is encapsulated within our Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which both Gafta and the platform provider sign as a demonstration of their dedication to improving industry processes through technology. Signatories must be members of Gafta in order to demonstrate their commitment to the commodity trade, as well as ensuring they are bound by our membership rules, providing peace-of-mind for users.