Why verifying and tracking a Bill of Lading is important

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Verifying and Tracking a Bill of Lading has become more important in international trade transactions than ever. All trade finance professionals are very much concerned about money laundering and terrorist financing.

Moreover, local, regional and international trade sanctions are another vital issue to deal with.

You might be thinking, how verification of B/L or BoL can help in those issues!

 

Bill of Lading at a Glance

A Bill of Lading, sometimes called B/L and BoL, is essential for international trade. The Carrier of goods or shipping lines issues a Bill of Lading to the Shipper of the goods.

A Bill of Lading looks like below:


Usual Concern Regarding a Shipment in Trade Transaction

In the normal course of business, an exporter-seller ships goods to the buyer as per the contract or LC. Then they send documents for collection. Then the buyer pays or accepts to pay and takes documents to release goods. In some cases, the buyer pays in advance, receives documents from the exporter-seller, and then releases the cargo/goods.

In this connection, the buyer wants to know about the actual status of the shipment. Moreover, buyers also remain worried about the shipment route because of sanctions from the US, UN, OFAC or Local regulatory bodies. So, tracking a shipment has become crucial.

 

Growing Concern Regarding a Shipment in Import-Export Trade Transaction

On the other hand, there is a growing concern that the import-export trade may involve money laundering or terrorist financing. It may also involve some ill motives like duty/tax evasion or availing of cash assistance facilities from the government. The entire process may involve all or more than one of those intentions at the same time.

In this regard, the exporter-importer may not make actual shipment as per contract. Fraudsters may take the chance of over-invoicing, under-invoicing or only producing some documentary pieces of evidence without making shipment at real.

Banker, Trader, Regulatory bodies are now worried about some issues as follows.

Whether the shipment actually has taken place?

What is the actual quantity shipped?

When was the shipment made?

Who is the owner of the cargo?

Who are the parties involved?

Who is the actual owner of the ship/vessel?

What route did the ship take?

As a trade finance professional, you already have understood the reason for such concerns. Answer to those questions may keep you safe from ML, TF, Sanction related complexities.

 

Verifying vs Tracking a Bill of Lading

Verifying and Tracking are different tasks. Verifying the B/L can ensure that the B/L is a true copy issued favouring the Shipper or exporter.

On the other hand, tracking can ensure that the information therein is accurate and confirms the route and status of delivery. Both of these are important for international trade dealings.

 

How does verification of Bill of Lading Help

Bill of Lading is such a document that provides evidence of actual shipment. As you can see from the given sample B/L, it gives us information about parties involved, port of loading and discharge, Carrier's name, H.S. Code, shipment quantity, container number, shipment date etc.

So, you need to know about the genuineness of the Bill of Lading exporter has submitted to you. You can be confirmed about all the information by verifying the B/L.

 

How does Tracking of Bill of Lading Help

More importantly, the Bill of Lading provides the evidence of Contract of Carriage, receipt of goods and document of title to the goods. So, tracking the B/L, you can track the shipment.

You can also see where were the goods or the cargo finally released by tracking the B/L. Sometimes you may also find the details of the party who finally released the cargo.

 

How to Verify a B/L

You can verify a Bill of Lading directly from the Shipping Lines or the Agent issuing the Bill of Lading. However, reaching a Shipping line or an Agent is not feasible for always. So, you can verify the Bill of Lading using their website. You can also communicate with the shipping line or agent over the phone or e-mail to verify the Bill of Lading.

Freight forwarders also issue the House Bill of Lading. This Bill of Lading is hard to verify from their website. So, you can e-mail them a scanned copy of the Bill of Lading and ask them for genuineness confirmation.

Now, when you are confirmed about the genuineness of the Bill of Lading, can you ascertain that the ship did not touch any port with Local, UN, OFAC or EU sanctions? Does this verification confirm that the shipment does not involve any Terrorist Finance or Money Laundering?

 

How to Track a B/L

Tracking a Bill of Lading or B/L is very simple when you’re trying to track a Master Bill of Lading. Almost all shipping lines have a tracking option on their website. Tracking a B/L issued from a Shipping Line website is a simple process. So, when you know the name of Shipping Line and their website, go to the website and track.

Sometimes it becomes difficult if the Bill of Lading is a House Bill of Lading or the Carrier's name is not mentioned in the B/L. Don’t worry. In this situation, you can try tracking using the Container Number. Container number bears a prefix indicating the shipping lines.

 

Websites free for tracking a B/L

You can track your shipment using professional tracking software. If you do not have access to any professional software, you can still track a shipment using your Bill of Lading information. You will find many websites that provide free shipment tracking facilities.

You can track a shipment using the Bill of Lading number or the Container number from these websites. However, one thing to remember is that you may not get all the information needed from this sort of free tracking service.

Shipping companies like DHL, UPS, TNT, FedEx have their free tracking services. Shipping lines like Maersk and Hyundai provide free tracking facilities for their Bill of Lading or Containers from maersk.com/tracking and Hyundai.container-tracking.org.

Moreover, https://parcelsapp.com/en provides free services to track packages from China, Canada Post, US Post, Royal Mail, LBC, Deutsche Post, Aliexpress, Shein, UPS, FedEx, eBay, Pitney Bowes, Amazon.

Another most popular website that provides free tracking service is “track-trace.com”. We've given below their website address for your ready reference.

https://www.track-trace.com/bol

You can see the YouTube video to learn the process quickly.

 

Happy reading!!!

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