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It is acknowledged that there is definite demand for the ISBP publication to be made more easily accessible to the market; whilst most documentary credit practitioners have access to UCP, this is often not the case for ISBP. One key approach is to focus on reasonable pricing and effective circulation. 

This is not an issue that can be addressed by the proposed ISBP 821 revision. As agreed by the ICC Banking Commission SteerCo, a separate project has now been established to examine these issues. 

Given that ISBP is structured around the examination of documents, an activity primarily conducted within banks, the main focus is on banking institutions. 

However, it is important to also acknowledge the valuable role that ISBP provides for other parties, thereby helping to significantly reduce the rate of discrepancies on first presentation:  

• applicants, e.g., by consulting ISBP text to ensure that the correct and appropriate wording is inserted into their LC application forms to avoid any issues of ambiguity; 
• beneficiaries, e.g., in understanding the type of data that must, may, or need not, be incorporated into the documents they create or have others create on their behalf for a presentation under a credit; 
• logistics and insurance companies, e.g., in the creation of transport and insurance documents under a credit and the benefit they can derive from the content of ISBP to aid that process. 

ICC National Committees have been asked to comment on five Action Points:

1.     Existing Documentary Guidance

2.     Affordability and Access

3.     Training Programs

4.     ISBP Content

5.     Post-Revision Activities

We will keep you appraised of developments. 

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