ICC has had to reprint copies of the eUCP, the new supplement to UCP 500 for electronic credits. The strong demand indicates that a number of banks are gearing up for eUCP use when the new supplement comes into force at midnight GMT on 31 March.

The new eUCP was approved by the ICC Banking Commission in November after more than a year of work and amendment. It contains 12 articles dealing with the electronic presentation of documents under documentary credits. It supplements, but does not replace UCP 500, and it can be used when there are part-electronic or all-electronic presentations of documents. Users of the eUCP have to specifically incorporate it in their credits; merely incorporating the UCP 500 will not suffice.

In new developments, Bolero and @globaltrade, both systems which provide for online trade, have indicated that they intend their systems to be "eUCP compliant". ICC expects the pick-up of the eUCP to be steady, once banks see the demand by their customers to use electronic rather than paper documents. ICC concedes, however, that paper documents will still be around for some years to come.

On 24 April, three weeks after the eUCP comes into force, ICC will be hosting a conference entitled "Using the new eUCP". Registration for the conference, which will be held at HSBC/CCF headquarters in Paris, can be done by printing out and faxing back a form that can be found online under "conferences" on the ICC web site, www.iccwbo.org

Copies of the eUCP can be ordered from the ICC bookstore at www.iccbooks.com