Document collection
A documentary collection is in foreign trade a payment condition in which the fee-paying Importer with the participation of banks document the payment receiving exporter against payment or acceptance of change train to train to be handed out. The interests of both trading partners in processing the payment in accordance with the contract and in a delivery in accordance with the contract are balanced.
General
However, for both exporters and importers, this instrument is only used for payment processing . This does not guarantee the quality and / or quantity of the goods or services supplied . This is only possible with appropriate documentation for letters of credit . The unwinding credit institutions use its contractual relationship always the "Uniform Rules for Collections" (ERI; Revision 1995 - ICC Publication 522) of the International Chamber of Commerce , Paris ( English International Chamber of Commerce , shortly ICC) as a basis.
Types of document collections
Documentary collections can be handled in several different ways. On the one hand, the documents can be handed over to the importer against payment ( English documents against payment ) or the documents can be handed over against acceptance of a bill of exchange or submission of an abstract promise of debt or the like ( foreign trade financing ). In the second form the payment until a later date due ( English Documents against acceptance ). While the exporter with English Documents against payment has the guarantee that the importer will only receive the documents after he has paid, he does not have this security with English Documents against acceptance , because the importer receives the documents after making a promise of debt. However, this does not say anything about the liquidity of the importer on the due date of the payment. If at this point in time the importer's account does not have sufficient funds or no credit line is available, the importer's bank will not make the payment, even though the documents have been handed over. This problem can be countered by making the delivery of documents dependent on the importer's bank suspending a guarantee for the payment of the collection on the due date. In the case of forbearance transactions , this guarantee is usually created in the form of a bank guarantee on the bill of exchange, whereby the bank enters into liability for the bill of exchange . There is also the variant of the irrevocable payment order , the importer submits his bank and provides the condition to make the payment thereof only with seized goods delivery ( English Documents against irrevocable payment order ).
As a general rule, a collection does not imply any obligation to be redeemed by the importer's bank. This is only the case with the letter of credit .
completion
In the underlying sales contract between exporter and importer, payment via document collection is initially agreed as a payment condition. The exporter submits the accompanying documents to his bank as collection documents and issues a collection order to the bank . These documents are usually:
- Certificate of origin : mostly certified by a chamber of commerce in the country of origin.
- Commercial invoice : rarely in a consularly certified form as a consular invoice (in practice this only occurs in trade with countries from the Middle East).
- Lading or shipping documents: as bill of lading , bill of lading , airway bill , bill of lading , Abladebestätigung , postal receipt, etc.
- Customs invoice : Invoice that is used for customs clearance in the importing country (formal requirements vary)
- Insurance policy for transportation.
- possibly change to acceptance by the importer and / or his bank,
- other documents such as health certificates or operating instructions .
The exporter's bank sends the documents with the collection order to a bank appointed by the importer or to a correspondent bank in the importer's country. The order may be electronically notified in advance via SWIFT . In the importing country, the bank involved notifies the importer of the existence of the collection order after checking the documents for completeness and the content of the collection order.
In some cities (Hamburg, Cologne, Bremen, etc.) there is the space usance , according to which the documents are left in trustworthy hands to particularly credible (and creditworthy) importers for further examination during one working day. However, the importer may only carry out a formal check of the papers; any further use of the documents is excluded.
The importer will instruct the bank to collect the collection documents and make payment, or he will accept an attached bill of exchange if provided. Then he receives the documents. The exporter has special security if the right to surrender the goods is linked to the documents; this is the case with sea waybills (bills of lading) and warehouse receipts.
If the importer does not accept the collection documents, the goods will be sent back or stored and kept at the bank's disposal according to the instructions of the exporter's bank.
Usually, the banks involved charge commission for processing the collection and the associated international payments.
The following legal relationships arise from the processing of a collection:
- Order of the exporter to his bank to arrange the collection ( agency contract ),
- Behalf of the exporter's bank to a correspondent bank in the country of import Euers to hand over the documents only against the agreed payment ( management contract ).
- An agency agreement is only created between the importer's bank and the importer when the order is placed to record the documents and process the payment. The bank is not liable for the correctness of the documents, as these are only checked for completeness during a collection.
See also
literature
- Siegfrieg Georg Häberle (Hrsg.): Handbook of letters of credit, collections, export documents and bank guarantees . R. Oldenbourg Verlag , Munich, Vienna 2000, ISBN 978-3-486-24965-1 ( limited preview in Google book search [accessed November 20, 2016]).
