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More than 300 participants attended the April ICC Banking Commission meeting in Athens, the largest crowd ever to attend an ICC commission meeting. One of the first items of business was to approve an updated version of the ICC Rules for Bank-to-Bank Reimbursements. The new rules, which will be known as URR 725, bring the rules into conformity with UCP 600. First published in 1995 under the title URR 525, the URR rules have been the most widely referenced rules of their kind, clarifying a number of issues in bank-to-bank reimbursements, such as expiry and conditions under which claims can be authenticated. The updated rules contained several important technical changes, including terms such as "express indication", and "operative reimbursement authorization".

There was also an extended discussion of the revision of the Uniform Rules for Demand Guarantees (URDG). The Chair of the Drafting Group, Georges Affaki, reconfirmed the necessity to bring into the new URDG a UCP-derived concept that would help to assess the conformity of documents, namely the concept of international standard demand guarantee practice as reflected in the URDG.

Two other Commission task forces, on forfaiting and antimoney laundering, have projects in progress. The Task Force on Forfaiting, which has more than 40 members, has completed a first review of the International Forfaiting Association (IFA) primary market guidelines. The Anti-Money Laundering Task Force is developing input to provide to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) at the OECD, which is the major international body charged with formulating anti-money laundering policy.

Clearly, the Commission is moving to take up issues that go beyond trade finance. Some possibilities: secured transactions, the global finance supply chain and factoring.