UK-based classification society Lloyd’s Register (LR) has worked with Applied Blockchain to develop the world’s first blockchain-based digital assurance platform for the marine and offshore industry.

It presented Digital Compliance at SMM, an international maritime trade fair taking place in Hamburg, Germany through 7th September.

What Digitial Class can do

Digital Class will allow Lloyd’s clients to demonstrate compliance with class requirements, remotely and continuously. It is also capable of assessing and determining the capabilities of a system provider to build an asset-specific twin.

The organisation claims to have created the first register of ships in 1764, “a tool used to provide merchants and underwriters with information about the quality and condition of vessels they chartered and insured”.

The system has been tested successfully

“LR has tested blockchain technology as an enabler to enter a ship into class, and we have identified multiple potential sources of value by adopting this technology in relation to the management of the activities required as part of this process,” says LR Marine and Offshore Director Nick Brown.

He explains the benefits of implementing blockchain into the register, saying it “provides immutability and auditability, therefore providing enhanced trust in the information provided on the platform and also potentially facilitating the trusted information to be available ‘up-to-the-minute’ allowing financing, insuring, payments, etc., to be provided more dynamically.”

LR is now focusing on extending the value to other stakeholders in the maritime supply chain.