Paris, 21 September 2000 - ICC, in a project sponsored by the European Commission and with the support of three business partners, has introduced a new online service making all of its documentary credit information available on the internet.

The new service responds to changes in the market place - namely, the accelerating move away from paper documents and into electronic medium. ICC's Banking Commission is already in the process of creating an electronic supplement to UCP 500, its universally recognized rules on letters of credit.

Called DC-PRO Focus, the new service, which will be sold on a subscription basis, includes:

• Fully searchable texts of all ICC rules (UCP 500, URC 522, URR 525, URDG 458, and DOCDEX. The UCP 500 text will be available in English, French, Spanish and German);
• Fully searchable texts of all published ICC Banking Commission official Opinions on documentary credits, as well as unpublished queries that have been approved by the Commission;
• Fully searchable texts of legal cases on letters of credit going back 20 years;
• Fully searchable texts of all back issues of the ICC's newsletter, Documentary Credits Insight;
• Fraud alerts, as they become known;
• DC World News (daily news articles on letters of credit);
• A discussion forum for experts in documentary credits;
• Full texts of all Banking Commission policy statements and Decisions (such as the recent Decision on original documents).

"No more leafing through reams of documents to find the documentary credit information you need," says Ron Katz, ICC's policy director for banking. "DC-PRO Focus puts all the data at your fingertips."

ICC is also moving to online training in documentary credits. A second service, called DC-PRO Mentor, will be available by April 2001. With more than 12 hours of web-based training, Mentor will be aimed at reducing the high discrepancy rate in letters of credit. An estimated 60-70% of L/Cs are rejected for discrepancies on first presentation.

DC-PRO Focus is now available, you can see a demonstration on the project's web site.
Click here to see the demonstration
Click here for a one week evaluation
Click here to order