DC Insight

The big event of these last weeks was the unanimous vote in favour of the updated ISBP at the ICC Banking Commission in Singapore. By a vote of 71-0, the new ISBP was formally approved.

Since it was first published in 2003, the ISBP has become an indispensable companion for many users of L/Cs. The phrase "international standard banking practice", which first appeared in UCP 500, left many practitioners puzzled as to what that practice consisted of. The ISBP, which detailed how examiners should review documents under UCP 500, put "meat on the bones" of the phrase and provided practitioners with a solid reference source for determining whether their own practice fell in line with generally accepted practice worldwide.

But with the onset of UCP 600, the ISBP had to change. The drafters called it an "update" rather than a revision, but it is changed nonetheless.

Naturally, this issue of Insight puts considerable focus on the updated ISBP 681, with the following three articles looking at it from different perspectives. The first article, on this page, gives an overview of the new publication and a breakdown of the final vote on the text. The second, by Haluk Erdemol, is more detailed and goes through the major changes, section-by-section. The third features an interview with Donald Smith, who is in a good position to judge the updated ISBP, since he co-chaired the task force that developed ISBP 645. Smith makes some pertinent comments about the updated text and clarifies the relationship between the ISBP and the UCP, which has been a subject of contention since the first ISBP was published four years ago.