Project

A. General Information

1. Title

bConnect

2. Status of the project
Operating
3. Implementation period of the project/service:
From
Jan-2018
To
Present
4. Website
https://www.wcoomd.org/-/media/wco/public/global/pdf/topics/facilitation/ressou…
5. Geographical coverage
Regional: Latin America
Participating countries: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay
6. Participating agencies/entities of the project/service:
a. Development stage
Lead agencies/entities
RFB (Brasil) e AFIP (Argentina)
Other participating agencies/entities
DNA (Uruguai) e DNA (Paraguai)
b. Operational stage
Lead agencies/entities (op)
RFB (Brasil) e AFIP (Argentina)
Other participating agencies/entities (op)
DNA (Uruguai) e DNA (Paraguai)
7. Main stakeholders/beneficiaries of the project
Traders (big enterprises)
Traders (SMEs)
Customs
8. Business process category of the project
Commercial Transactions
Regulatory/official control

B. Lessons Learned

9. Summary description of the project/service
a. Objective(s)

bConnect platform begins to be used by Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay to ensure more agility and security in the exchange of information on foreign trade. bConnect is a tool that allows the network sharing of registration information of companies certified by the Federal Revenue Service as an Authorized Economic Operator (OAS) and that enjoy benefits such as facilitation of customs procedures, both in Brazil and abroad.

bConnect was created to supply an international need of automated exchange of customs data of the OAS between the countries, that, before, was made, in its majority, by means of spreadsheets elaborated or extracted from the system that each country had and sent by electronic mail

The bConnect network begins by allowing the sharing of information from Authorized Economic Operators (AEO) and there are already plans to increase the network to meet the sharing of information from Customs Declarations. 

the bConnect solution was developed using the Hyperledger Fabric 1.4 framework, an open source application maintained by The Linux Foundation.

b. Business need for the project (background)

The solution should adopt the WCO data model. Furthermore, it should be fully distributed so that the service is not hosted in just one country.

c. Business process covered*

Data flows through an encrypted tunneling channel, between countries and according to the respective agreement.

d. Overall architecture and functionalities*

The bConnect project consists of a permissioned blockchain implementation (Hyperledger fabric) that allows any type of data to be exchanged between participating countries. It is a Mercosur project, but it allows both the exchange of data between all countries and the bilateral exchange between some of them, and also the exchange of data with other countries that may adopt this tool.

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e. Relevant document/figure
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10. Documents and data exchanged via the project

AEO data exchange

Customs declarations

11. Data models/databases, proprietary solutions, hybrid approaches
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12. Main challenges faced during the project

At the beginning of the project, there was a great lack of professionals qualified to implement Blockchain projects. In addition, the specific characteristics of this technology required some adjustments between the countries involved.

13. Lessons learned from the project

The use of blockchain allowed us to have a data exchange tool that, unlike the models we used until then, does not require the figure of a central server and also facilitates the management of data security and auditing.

14. Main benefit(s) of the project
Enhanced regulatory compliance*
Transaction Cost savings*
Transaction Time savings
Simplified process
14A. Elaborations/detailed description on benefits gained

Blockchain platform is very suitable for sharing logistic events and documents among all parties in supply chains

Facilitation of customs procedures

Data protection and consistency

15. Technical/financial/capacity building/other assistance
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16. Future plan for expansion of the project

We are studying other data exchange cases for use with this tool. We are currently finalizing the data exchange of some auxiliary tables of the international land traffic control system. Furthermore, the issue of interoperability between established blockchains on different platforms is also on our radar.

17. Other information or relevant references on the project

https://www.ibm.com/topics/hyperledger

18. Relevant document regarding the project
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C. Relevant Standards

19. Name(s) of any international, national legal instrument underpinning the project
Bilateral agreement between Uruguay and Brazil
Bilateral agreement between Uruguay and Argentina
20. Electronic message standard
20A. Electronic message standard supporting the project
Json and XML:
20B. Type of standard for electronic message applied for the project
International standard
21. Technical communication standard
21A. Technical communication standard supporting the project
HTTP
21B. Type of technical communication standard applied for the project
International standard
22. Security-related standards*
22A. Security-related standard supporting the project
Digital signatures
22B. Type of security-related standard applied for the project
International standard
23. Other Technical Information
23A. Interface developed for data exchange with an internal system
bConnect offers an API with several services to connect to our Single Window..
23B. Other technical implementation information
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