Banks and corporates have been given the go ahead to use the SWIFT financial messaging network for the exchange of trade finance-related information, including letter of credit (L/C) advice and applications.

The move follows the SWIFT board's 10 June decision to include trade messaging for the first time in its Standardised Corporate Environment (Score) participant model.

Step forward

Corporates connected to SWIFT view exchanging trade messages as the next valuable step after payments, cash management and treasury activities, says director ofstrategy and product development at the Standard Bank of South Africa and SWIFT board member, Arthur Cousins.

"This represents a major step forward for banks, to provide a complete trade offering to their corporate customers," he adds.

L/C messages

The service will use the SWIFT MT 798 messaging envelope for exchanging trade data relating to import and export L/Cs as well as guarantees and standby L/Cs.

Guidelines for using the service have been based on the experience of the German banking community, which has operated a national corporate-to-bank standard for information exchange since the late 1990s.

"Banks, corporates and vendors are spending serious time evaluating our proposals - their contributions are essential to SWIFT's success," concludes Cousins.

This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the ICC or any of the other partners in DC-PRO.