ICC Digital Standards Initiative announces next phase of operations

The ICC Digital Standards Initiative (DSI) has announced its transition into its next phase of operations that aims to accelerate the delivery of interoperable trade record exchange at scale. Supporting this phase will involve a significant refresh of its organisation and advisory board structure to effectively deliver on this mandate.

These changes were approved by members of the DSI Governance Board i.e., the Asian Development Bank (ADB), ICC, World Customs Organization (WCO) and World Trade Organization (WTO) Secretariat, who viewed the accelerating fragmentation across the digital trade ecosystem with a high degree of concern. They assessed that new approaches were needed to mitigate this trend and to decisively reorient efforts to achieve interoperability at scale, with a focus on standards, trust and identity.

To support the next phase, the DSI will:

• Create a dedicated Technology Advisory Board (TAB) which will develop a consolidated approach to the use, sharing and interoperability of trade records across the end-to-end supply chain. Key software companies used by the community to create trade records will be joining the new Board, with a kick-off likely to take place in October.  

• Create a dedicated Standards Advisory Board (SAB) which will bring together standards development organisations including those already affiliated with DSI, to enable interoperability across trade documents and data standards.  

• The TAB and SAB will work alongside a refined Industry Advisory Board (IAB) which will bring together a cross-industry group of Trade heads from companies operating along the supply chain, including finance. The IAB will define foundational requirements – across standards, trust, and identity—for digital trade records to be deployed at scale by industry, and then work with the TAB and SAB to iterate, implement, and adopt collectively developed solutions.  

The new approach thus joins together industry, technology and standards in a single work programme with a collective aim to mitigate against fragmentation and ensure plug-and-play connectivity at scale.  This will be particularly important for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to fully transition to digitalised trade, in ways that they have not been able to thus far. 

The changes above do not impact the DSI’s ongoing work through the Legal Reform Advisory Board (LRAB), as more countries seek to undertake legal reform for digital trade. Rather, it is a recognition that legal reform is absolutely necessary, but needs to be accompanied by practical work in the technical and standards areas that can enable levels of interoperability to increase in practice and at scale.    

The Governance Board jointly expresses its appreciation to members of the IAB and LRAB for their work thus far, and welcomes new stakeholders and players to our joint task of enabling the world to conclusively achieve the digitalised, interoperable trade ecosystem by 2030.