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EY, Guardtime blockchain venture Insurwave expands to China

Maersk container ship

Today EY announced that Insurwave, the joint venture company with Guardtime has signed a deal with the Chinese port of Zhuhai. The platform currently provides insurance cover for more than 1,000 vessels.

Insurwave launched its blockchain marine insurance solution a year ago with Maersk as the first client. Initially the insurance cover was focused on the vessels.

The Zhuhai agreement aims to explore the link between blockchain marine insurance and port logistics for the Greater Bay Area and beyond.

“Combining the knowledge from Insurwave with Zhuhai Port Holdings’ experience in port logistics, we’re pleased to establish a joint initiative for identifying blockchain’s applications in cross-border financial services, logistics and trade,” said Shaun Crawford, EY Global Vice Chair for Industry.

He continued: “Insurwave was developed a year ago to transform how businesses manage risk across their organization and how they work with brokers and (re)insurers.”

Maersk made a great pilot client because it accounts for 18 percent of global shipping. When it first launched, Insurwave planned to provide insurance for 1,000 vessels and automate 500,000 transactions in the first year. Ledger Insights asked about progress and the response was: “we’re in excess of these numbers now and rising.”

The platform uses R3’s Corda technology hosted on Microsoft Azure.

NTT Data also has eyes on blockchain and marine insurance in Asia.