An electronic bill of lading (eBL) is the digital form of the bill of lading, the document that a shipping line issues when it receives goods for a sea voyage. A bill of lading does three jobs. It is the receipt for the goods. It records the contract for carrying them. And the original paper copy proves who owns the goods: at the port of arrival, the shipping line hands over the goods only to the person who presents the original.
Because the paper original proves ownership, it is precious. It is often sent by courier from the exporter to the exporter's bank, then to the buyer's bank, and then to the buyer. That trip can take a week or more. Sometimes the ship arrives first, and the goods wait at the port, at a daily cost, until the paper arrives. If the paper is lost, getting the goods released is slow and costly.
An eBL replaces the paper with a digital record on a shared platform. The shipping line, the exporter, the banks and the buyer all join the same platform. Only one party controls the eBL at any time. When that party passes the eBL to the next one, the platform records the transfer. So there is never more than one "original".
Say a spice exporter in Kochi ships 12 tonnes of black pepper to a buyer in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. The buyer pays through a letter of credit, a promise by the buyer's bank to pay once the right documents are presented. The shipping line issues an eBL to the exporter on the platform within an hour of loading. The exporter transfers it to its bank in Kochi the same day. The bank checks it against the letter of credit and transfers it to the buyer's bank in the Netherlands, which pays. The buyer's bank transfers the eBL to the buyer. Two days after loading, the buyer controls the eBL, about three weeks before the ship docks. The banks handle their steps on a trade finance platform.
The eBL is still uncommon. It is valid only where the law accepts an electronic record as the original. And every party must join the same platform, or platforms that can exchange records with each other. Shipping lines and banks are now agreeing on common standards to make this easier.
The eBL is usually issued and stored through freight forwarding software or a shipping line's own system. It is one step towards the paperless shipment described on the page on ocean freight and customs, together with filing customs papers online through customs clearance software.