INTERNET BILLS OF LADING

APL’s Diane Terrien Speaks With LCM

LCM - Please tell us about your background.

APL - I’ve just celebrated my nineteenth anniversary with APL as of January 2001. My first fourteen years were spent in the Chicago office working in both documentation and customer service. For the last five years I have been with the service center in Denver, most recently as Director of North America Documentation.

LCM - There has been a lot of discussion recently at the ICC Banking Commission with respect to APL’s facsimile signature on bills of lading (B/Ls). How would you describe the current state of acceptance of your original and Sea Waybills by exporters and/or their financial institutions?

APL - APL introduced the electronic signature B/L in conformance with UCP500 standards five years ago. Initially there was much education to be done with both exporters and financial institutions. I am glad to report that progress has been made in that facsimile signature B/Ls have now become widely accepted within the industry. However, there are still some exceptions within certain Latin American countries with which we continue working.

LCM - The Bill of Lading is considered a document of title by the financial institutions. What is your view on the future of original bills of lading given the acceptance of digital signatures and other changing technologies in the new electronic world?

APL - Overall the industry has become more accepting of electronic documents. As a result, APL is seeking new
web-based initiatives such as original bills of lading processed as email attachments, as well as other alternatives (initiatives to print originals on plain paper instead of on the traditional bill of lading form). As an industry I believe we will need to pursue both paperless documents with emerging technologies and traditional bills of lading for
those customers or countries that will require paper documents.

LCM - Banks, on behalf of the importer, often request that they see the words ‘Clean on Board’ printed on a bill of lading irrespective of what Article 32 says in the UCP 500. How do carriers, like APL, deal with this issue?

APL - We continue to educate the market by counseling our customers in support of UCP 500 standards.

LCM - Looking into the future, how do you see international trade changing and where do you see the role of the ocean carriers fitting in?

APL - Our customers rightfully have a higher level of expectation from us now. Their needs are more global in nature and they look to us to identify ways to meet these needs and to do it expeditiously. APL is meeting this challenge head on. APL Logistics will be able to handle any and all of our customer’s logistics needs by becoming both a service and an information provider. Our award-winning website has numerous options, from tracking and tracing your cargo, to printing your B/L. All of these initiatives allow us to work as a team with our customers and to enable them to do business with us more quickly and easily.

LCM - What do you consider are the challenges facing the global acceptance of Internet Bills of Lading?

APL - The steamship industry is steeped in a tradition that is rich in paper! However, as consumers overall have begun to embrace the Internet and are becoming more comfortable with paperless transactions in their daily lives, I believe the natural evolution will continue to be toward a paperless environment. eUCP will support this new way of doing business.