Blog Comments

Do the Austrians still allow smoking in the office Daria? When I attended an IIBLP Annual L/C Survey in Vienna some years ago I was amazed to see delegates puffing away in the rest areas when it had been legally banned for quite some years in the UK.

my above post in no way is purposed to blame swift for anything, they are doing THEIR job very well, but in case of TSU and BPO as one instrument operable through TSU, it is too early to say about a revolution in trade finance or finance supply chain (especially in the context of paperless and less labor (and consequently time) intensity that are the major arguments in favor TSU advantages) because one needs to implement paperless approach and special technologies for documents handling to all trade-related areas, that is transportation (various waybills and bills of lading), certification (original, quality etc.), inspection etc. such task seems not so easy, at least nowadays

Ken, thanks for the reply. I felt that it was too early time for any more or less crystallized draft of the BPO rules in ICC revision. As far as I understood BPO is nowadays being governed by some rules designed by SWIFT. Unfortunately I failed to find any rulebook on the SWIFT website (only materials of ad and technical character - installations problems solution, minimum systems requirement, upgrading etc. ))). What seems to me that SWIFT being by nature a communication provider would not be in a position to develop by themselves any rules which would make the instrument industry-wide acceptable, they would rather outsource such job, what is now happening with ICC ))) So my question was if it was possible to understand the ICC's approach and how the standard (rules) could be alike the ICC UCP for doc credits?

Hello Daria and Vadim,

Thanks for your comments. The mood of the participants on the BIII issue is a big concern and compared to the spring meeting 2011 it actually seems to be less optimistic. But of course, BIII will not be the end of the world.

The BPO product actually already exists. However in its existing form the commercial availability is restricted to financial institutions subscribed to SWIFT’s Trade Service Utility (TSU) service and the usage is governed by SWIFT’s contractual development, i.e. the TSU Service Description and Rulebook.

The objective of the ICC BPO working group is to establish the BPO as a new industry-wide and technology neutral instrument owned by the ICC.
The timeline for the drafting group is to distribute a proposed final version of the ICC BPO rules to ICC National Committees in January 2013 for a possible approval of the rules at the ICC Banking Commission meeting in March 2013.