Global logistics giant DHL is joining forces with blockchain trade finance platform TradeIX in a bid to automate its processes, CoinTelegraph reported.

The partnership was announced on June 5, at the Money20/20 conference in Amsterdam.

Becky Taylor, Vice President of Commercial at DHL Supply Chain UK and Ireland, explained that the company has been exploring how to “create more efficient networks” through digitization, including a way to “serialize products to be able to track that product through its life.”

Taylor said that DHL on its own “can’t achieve those types of funding rates to create an attractive price [for customers], so we started to work with Trade IX.”

According to Daniel Cotti, CFO of TradeIX, the current lack of standards and interoperability in the trade finance market create disconnected trade systems that depend largely on manual, expensive, error-prone and redundant processes. Blockchain has the potential to address these issues and facilitate a “leaner, more automated and error-free processes and increased visibility.”

In June 2017, TradeIX launched TIX Platform, the first open blockchain-powered platform ‘TIX’ for trade finance. The platform will reportedly enable DHL to “embe[d] multiple funding and risk mitigation options into their product offering.”

Earlier this year, DHL, in collaboration with Accenture, announced that it has developed a serialization prototype using blockchain technology to track pharmaceuticals across the supply chain.