A Study on the Roles and Revision of eUCP for Global Electronic Trading

글로벌 전자무역의 실현을 위한 eUCP의 역할과 개정방안

In the Spring of 2000, the Banking Commission of the ICC decided to appoint a working group to draft a supplement to the UCP 500 to clarify the position regarding electronic presentation under a documentary credit. Provisions was drafted to supplement its existing rules for documentary credit, that is, UCP 500. These new provisions known as Supplement to UCP 500 for Electronic Presentation was approved by the ICC Banking Commission at the beginning of November 2001 and came in force as of 1 April 2002 The eUCP covers matters such as definitions of key terms such as electronic record, electronic signature, format, paper document, received. An eUCP Credit must specify the formats in which electronic records are to be presented and if not, electronic records may be presented in any format. Electronic records may be presented separately and need not be presented at the same time. The purpose of this paper is to understand the main substance of eUCP and to facilitate the introduction of electronic letter of credit by studying the problems and revision of eUCP and new electronic UCP. The main substances of eUCP are electronic address as place for presentation of electronic records, flexibility of the formats of electronic records to be presented, endowment of the notice of completeness of presentation to the beneficiary, one electronic record satisfying one or more originals or copies of an electronic record, the electronic records to be examined including the electronic record at the hyperlink to an external system or the referenced system, no remark as to the time period for the examination of documents. The Roles of eUCP are the Promotion of the Electronic Trade, the Supply of Basis on the Uniform Rules for Electronic Letter of Credit, the introduction of Electronic Trade Model. The characteristics of eUCP are a supplement to the UCP, no address of any issues relating to the issuance or advice of Credit electronically, independence of specific technologies and developing electronic commerce system, that is, Bolero Service. The Problems of eUCP are flexibility of format of electronic record, heavy burden on the side of banks, and the problems regrading the number of presentation, the notice of completeness of presentation, no provision in regard to the time to examine the electronic records, and representation of the electronic records. In the revision of eUCP to resolve the problems, the things to be taken into consideration are as follows; the designation of the format allowing the banks to examine electronically, prohibition of the paper documents, the development of the system receiving the electronic records, the addition of the reception notice on the side of the banks, the setting of the time to examine the electronic records, the construction of the backup system or the dual processing system.