This presentation report by LSE's Trade Policy Hub, commissioned by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), reviews the evidence on the adoption of electronic trade documents (ETDs) by UK small and medium-sized enterprises. It forms the first step in DBT's wider SME Capability project, establishing the baseline against which future interventions to accelerate the transition from paper to digital will be designed. The review draws on 17 sources published between 2017 and 2025, supplemented by five semi-structured interviews with subject-matter experts in trade, trade finance and ETDs, and covers barriers to adoption, sectoral differences, SME awareness, attitudes across supply chains, and international lessons from countries pursuing trade digitalisation. Its central finding is that adoption remains negligible. Only one to two per cent of trade documents are digital globally, and fewer than four per cent of bills of lading are electronic after more than 40 years of effort.
The potential prize is substantial. Universal digitalisation could raise UK GDP by up to 1.3 per cent, unlock £25bn in UK SME trade growth, cut transaction costs by as much as 80 per cent and reduce cross-border processing from 25 days to a single day. The United Kingdom is also unusually well placed to lead. The Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 gives digital documents the same legal status as paper, is technology-neutral, and carries international weight because English law governs most sea carriage contracts worldwide. Yet the benefits remain projections drawn from pilots rather than measured economy-wide gains, and momentum is concentrated among large players. Electronic bill of lading use has doubled since 2023 and nine major carriers representing 75 per cent of global capacity have committed to full digitalisation by 2030, while SMEs remain largely untouched. Understanding why the gap persists is therefore urgent.
The linked presentation sets out the findings of the review. Key findings include: first, that digital platforms operate as 'walled gardens' with no common data standards; second, 73 per cent of firms cite interoperability as a concern; third, 62 per cent of SMEs cannot name a customs simplification they could use; and finally, 92 per cent rely on third parties for customs compliance. The pattern is long-standing, and the review traces it through the failure of SeaDocs, BOLERO, TradeLens and we.trade, each of which foundered on closed membership, cost to scale, or the inability to onboard entire supply chains. Legislation alone does not trigger uptake, since the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records has been adopted in only 13 or so countries, few of them major UK trading partners. International models worth adapting include Singapore's TradeTrust, an open-source and freely available system for exchanging and verifying electronic trade documents across platforms, and its SMEs Go Digital programme, which pairs sector-specific guidance with financial support and staff training. It concludes that voluntary, SME-led adoption will not scale, and that progress depends on coordinated action by government, large buyers, carriers and customs authorities.
These findings will help the UK government shape its approach to building SME capability in trade digitalisation, working with industry to make trade simpler, faster and more digital.
As well as the powerpoint report, the Trade Policy Hub also contributed to the full report published in PDF alongside this presentation. Here is the link to the full research.