A recent Parliament session in the UK (Feb 7) has revealed that the implementation of a distributed ledger project to support its customs needs is being held back till after Brexit.

The project was initially announced by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) back in 2017 involving the development of an authorized blockchain “that could be used to verify a trader’s Authorized Economic Operator” status in the country.

Member of Parliament (MP) Eddie Hughes had inquired about the status of the blockchain project, to which UK Treasury’s financial secretary, MP Mel Stride, replied verbally that the project had been put through a six-week trial. The trial confirmed that the “government could use blockchain to securely share the results of sensitive risk checks to improve the efficiencies of certain customs processes.”  

However, Stride added that a “significant implementation” of blockchain will need “significant further work by HMRC”, and thus will be deferred till after Brexit when timescales and cost can be revisited.