I classify international banking and international shipping together because for a international business that buys and resells materials, the two are interrelated. It is necessary to have a bank and a freight agent that has a lot of experience in international business. Do not use a small local bank as they cannot meet your need when it comes to doing business outside the United States.

The 21st century has witnessed swift change in every sphere of the human endeavour. Regulatory re-alignment, digitalisation and economic and political developments have contributed to paradigm shift in banking, trade, finance and the shipping industry virtually transforming the landscape. International Trade Finance is an essential tool for bankers, exporters/importers, shippers, consultants, teachers and students navigating the procedures of international trade finance. The book addresses basic topics relating to international trade including letters of credit mechanism, collections of bills, trade customs and practice. New to this revised edition, it covers SWIFT updates, supply chain system, UKEF, Blockchain technologies, the implications of BREXIT, NAFTA, Mexico, Canada and other bilateral agreements and their implications, the US sanctions, terrorist financing and anti-money laundering provisions, and a check list to control financial crime risks in trade finance. The extended metaphor of the book is that of an arm chair tour covering fundamentals to the nuances of the hard core of the subject matter and enabling the readers to deal with complicated implementation issues in a forthright and comprehensive fashion.

International Standard Banking Practice (ISBP) for the examination of documents under documentary credits, answers the most relevant questions practitioners have concerning how UCP 500, ICC's universally used rules on documentary credits, are to be integrated into day-to-day practice. The product of more than two years of work by the ICC Banking Commission, ISBP is based on the official Opinions issued by the Banking Commission in response to queries submitted by users of UCP 500. The text provides responses to the key questions relating to the examination of drafts, multimodal transport documents, insurance documents, certificates of origin and a range of other documents associates with letters of credit. This publication reflects international standard banking practice for all parties to a documentary credit. Figures show that 60%-70% of credits are rejected for discrepancies on first presentation. The new ISBP, by encouraging a uniformity of practice worldwide, is expected to cut these figures dramatically and, by doing so, to facilitate the flow of world trade.

Trade Finance provides a much-needed re-examination of the relevant legal principles and a study of the challenges posed to current legal structures by technological changes, financial innovation, and international regulation. Arising out of the papers presented at the symposium, Trade Finance for the 21st Century, this collection brings together the perspectives of scholars and practitioners from around the globe focusing on core themes, such as reform and the future role of the UCP, the impact of technology on letters of credit and other forms of trade finance, and the rise of alternative forms of financing. The book covers three key fields of trade finance, starting with the challenges to traditional trade financing by means of documentary credit. These include issues related to contractual enforceability, the use of "soft clauses", the doctrine of strict compliance, the fraud exception, the role of the correspondent bank, performance bonds, and conflict of laws problems. The second main area covered by the work is the technological issues and opportunities in trade finance, including electronic bills of exchange, blockchain, and electronically transferable records. The final part of the work considers alternative and complementary trade finance mechanisms such as open account trading, supply-chain financing, the bank payment obligation, and countertrade.