A Study on Reimbursement Mechanism and the use for Exporters

In letter of credit arrangements, the issuing bank nominate a reimbursing bank which serves as a source of funds payment to the beneficiary. The reimbursing bank could be 3rd party bank or the issuing bank itself. In view of working capital requirements, most beneficiary want to get export proceeds in advance through nominated banks and therefore letter of credit usually permit the beneficiary to negotiate drafts, accompanied by required documents, to nominated bank. If the credit is available with the nominated bank, there must be a reimbursement instruction in the credit, because in this method of availability the issuing bank is obliged to reimburse the nominated bank if that bank acts on its nomination There are legal relationship among issuing bank, nominated bank and reimbursing bank with regard to reimbursement activities. Related rules are UCP and URR and UCC (in case of USA). Korean exporters and bankers do not appear to know well the role of reimbursement and usage. 3 cases (court case + ICC Opinion + bad practices) were employed to study the reimbursement mechanism and suggest better usages. The beneficiary is strongly recommended to know the benefit of reimbursement claim from independent reimbursing bank. The benefits include speed payment (thereby saving finance costs) and safe funds (in case of stop payment by the issuing bank right after the proceeds are reimbursed). And further the beneficiary banks (being nominated or claim banks) are also recommended to take advantage of the 3rd party reimbursement in view of the cases illustrated.