The first full agricultural commodity transaction using a blockchain platform has been completed by a group of companies including ING, Societe Generale and ABN Amro.

The trade included a full set of digitalised documents – the sales contract, letter of credit and certificates – and automatic data matching, therefore avoiding task duplication and manual checks.

The transaction mirrored the paper-based process, and reduced the time spent on processing documents and data by fivefold. Other benefits included the ability to monitor the operation's progress in real time, data verification, reduced risk of fraud and a shorter cash cycle.

Companies in the chain were ING, Societe Generale, ABN Amro, Shandong Bohi Industry and Louis Dreyfus Company. In the test, the blockchain platform was used to execute a soybean shipment transaction from the United States to China, with Louis Dreyfus Company as the seller and Bohi as the buyer. The banks issued and confirmed the letter of credit, while Russell Marine Group and Blue Water Shipping also participated in the process, issuing all the required certificates.

The transaction was completed using an enhanced version of the Easy Trading Connect (ETC) platform – a blockchain prototype designed to digitalise and standardise commodity transactions. It was first validated with an oil cargo transaction last February, with the subsequent launch in November of an energy consortium aiming to offer blockchain-based services to the energy sector.

The same principle has been applied to develop an ETC blockchain-based platform tailored to agricultural commodities trading, adapted to the sector’s complex documentation chain flows, covering not only the financing aspects but also the full set of relevant documents for a transaction, such as the signing and processing of the sales contract at the start.

Gonzalo Ramírez Martiarena, CEO of the Louis Dreyfus Company, said: “One thing is clear: the digital revolution is transforming the commodities sector. Distributed ledger technologies have been evolving rapidly, bringing more efficiency and security to our transactions, and immense expected benefits for our customers and everyone along the supply chain as a result. The next step is to harness the potential for further development through the adoption of common standards, and welcome a truly new era of digital trade flow management on a global level.”

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