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 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, and conflict of laws problems. The second main area covered by the work is alternative and complementary trade finance mechanisms such as open account trading, supply-chain financing, the bank payment obligation ("BPO"), performance bonds, and countertrade. The final part of the work considers technological issues and opportunities in trade finance, including electronic bills of exchange, blockchain, and electronically transferable records.

Christopher Hare, Travers Smith Associate Professor of Corporate and Commercial Law, University of Oxford,Dora Neo, Director, Centre for Banking & Finance Law, National University of Singapore

Christopher Hare is the Travers Smith Associate Professor of Corporate and Commercial Law, Oxford University and a Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford. He has degrees from Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard Law School and, after a short period practising as a barrister from 3 Verulam Buildings, he held teaching posts at Jesus College, Cambridge University and the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Dora Neo is an Associate Professor and the founding Director of the Centre for Banking & Finance Law (CBFL) at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore (NUS), where she teaches contract, credit & security and international banking and previously served as Vice-Dean.

Part 1: LEGAL AND PRACTICAL CHALLENGES TO TRADITIONAL TRADE FINANCE
1. The UCP Regime: Past, Present, and Future
2. The Letter of Credit as a Contract
3. Soft clauses in letters of credit
4. Perspectives on the Role of the Nominated Bank in a Letter of Credit
5. Determining a Complying Presentation in Letter of Credit Transactions: a Principled Appraisal of Current Requirements and Challenges
6. The Fraud Rule in the Law of Letters of Credit Revisited
7. Letters of Credit and Stop Payment Orders Made in the Issuer's Country
8. Independent Guarantees in International Trade
Part II: TRADE FINANCE TECHNOLOGY
9. The Electronic Bill of Exchange and its Use in International Trade
10. Digitalisation of Shipping and Insurance Documents: Implications for Trade Finance
11. Implementation and Implications of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records in Trade Finance
12. Will Trade Finance be Transformed by Blockchain?
Part III: INNOVATION AND TRADE FINANCE CHALLENGERS
13. The Bank Payment Obligation as a Signal Step in the Evolution of Digital Trade Finance
14. Open Account, Prepayment, and Supply Chain Financing
15. Innovation and Islamic Trade Finance
16. Countertrade as Finance