  Invoice factoring is an invoice financing process where business
organizations sell their invoices to banks or financial institutions at a
discount to gain faster access to the invoice amount. In global trade, ocean
and land carriers exercise invoice factoring to gain quick access to the money
they get paid for the shipment of consignments by shippers. Shippers typically
clear the invoice payment within 60-90 days of goods getting delivered. In
order to get early access to capital, carriers initiate invoice factoring after
the completion of goods delivery to the shipper. In this work, we provide an
approach to enable accelerated carrier invoice factoring even before the
delivery of goods. Carrier invoice value for a given shipment depends on the
actual values of shipment tracking events. We predict the carrier invoice value
at different freight transport milestone events as the goods transportation
progresses from supplier to shipper using smart contracts on a blockchain
network that is operated by the global trade logistics participants. The
prediction at a given stage is based on past shipment tracking events and
predicted future shipment tracking events. Accurate prediction of invoice value
for ongoing shipment enables the carrier organization to initiate invoice
factoring on the trade finance network before the completion of goods delivery
to the shipper. Further, based on the past accuracy of prediction models, the
financial institutions may choose to release the invoice amount in installments
at different freight transportation milestone events.
