Using Hyperledger Fabric to Reduce Fraud in International Trade
Christopher G. Harris · 2021
Due to the physical distances and different global customs and laws, international trade is fraught with risk; a significant threat involves falsified or fraudulent letters of credit (LC) and/or bills of lading (BoL). We describe how federated and permissioned blockchains are more suitable to detect and mitigate fraudulent behavior than permissionless ones. We propose a framework based on Hyperledger Fabric that can ensure that the involved entities are valid, transactions on these goods are correctly ordered, documents are verifiable, and they properly represent the goods on the BoL Next, we discuss three scenarios that illustrate fraud in international trade and describe how our proposed framework can address each of these concerns. Last, we discuss some challenges in implementing our proposed framework and discuss future steps in our research.