Russia’s post office exploring blockchain to track parcels

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The Russian post office is exploring blockchain technology for its parcel tracking system. According to top officials, the office could invest over $500 million into the system by 2025, with a working pilot expected in two years.

Known as Pochta Rossii, the national post office in Russia has been on a digital transformation mission in recent times as it seeks to stay competitive in the digital era. Blockchain sits atop the list of the technologies that the organization is exploring, Vladimir Urbansky, the director of digital products told local business daily Vedomosti.

Vladimir revealed that the post office expects to launch a ‘market-oriented’ blockchain-based tracking system by 2023. Describing the organization as a logistics chain, he emphasized that the new system will also allow it to provide the end-to-end tracking services.

Blockchain technology will also aid the post office to limit the number of lost parcels, an industry expert told the newspaper. The existing system which the post office uses isn’t as efficient and blockchain could allow it to save a lot of time and effort in the search of lost items, he added.

The organization has submitted the blockchain-powered digital transformation strategy to the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, which is expected to review it and give a final decision. Minister Makut Shadaev told the outlet that once his Ministry makes its decision, it will pass the proposals over to the post office’s board of directors for approval.

If the proposal sails through, the Russian government will invest upwards of 38 billion rubles ($523 million) into it.

Blockchain has been a technology the Russian post office has explored for some time now. A few years back, its Director General Nikolai Podguzov revealed the organization was exploring the technology, stating, “We have 9 billion rubles in transactions every day. In order to ensure the security of these transactions, it is quite possible that we use blockchain technology, and we are working on it.”

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