Method and system for franking postal articles and for billing a logistics service

A computer-implemented method for franking postal articles and for billing alogistics service between postal service providers, which comprises the method steps:

• applying a stamp or indicium with a machine-readable and unique franking identification to a postal article to be conveyed;
• storing the franking identification in a block of a blockchain;
• recording the franking identification of the stamp or indicium applied to the postal article to be conveyed in a system of a first postal service provider by a reader;
• comparing a recorded franking identification with the franking identification stored in the block of the blockchain;
• deeming the franking identification to be active and stored as a transaction in a further block of the blockchain as “active” if it is established that the recorded franking identification is identical to the franking identification stored in the block of the blockchain;
• conveying the postal article from a sender and delivery to a recipient by the postal service providers as a logistics service;
• during a conveyance of the postal article by systems of the postal service providers, the franking identification applied to the postal article is recorded by readers allocated to the system and stored as a transaction together with an identity of the system including an identity of the postal service providers and a time stamp of a recording in the block of the blockchain;
• and
• billing the logistics service by analyzing transactions stored in the blockchain that are to be allocated to at least one of the postal service providers.