Trust beyond borders.

Customs clearance in foreign trade is a highly regulated area, shaped by national and EU regulations as well as varying requirements of the respective third countries. One problem is that the authenticity of the information exchanged between traders in the data on customs declarations is difficult for the authorities or the integrity of commercial invoices to verify. Therefore, for greater integration and interconnection of digital customs procedures, trust in the data provided needs to be strengthened. This is especially true for the information that is often identified as a source of fraudulent behaviour and customs or tax evasion.
In the meantime, numerous initiatives – for example in Latin America – have advocated the use of blockchain technology for customs purposes. Existing solutions underline the practicality of the application. However, these often have a regional focus or are limited to very specific functions.
Against this background, the WG Open Customs Blockchain strives for solutions that are also widely implemented. One solution that is key to this is open source. This is because previous systems are proprietary, commercially oriented and expensive. Moreover, they often require complex data sets and are not based on global standards.