- Instrument
- Documentary credit
- Raised by
- Applicant (buyer)
- Forms
- Conventional or Murabaha, local or international
- Covers
- Application through settlement
The part of an LC nobody talks about
A letter of credit is not a document, it is a process: an applicant asks its bank to open a credit, the bank issues it, an advising bank passes it to the beneficiary, goods move, documents are presented, someone checks them against the terms, discrepancies are argued about, and eventually payment happens.
Almost every step of that is administration, and almost all of it currently happens over email and courier. Amendments arrive as attachments nobody can reconcile against the original. Presentations are checked twice because the first check was on a scan. A discrepancy raised on day nine is discovered on day twelve.
Executing the credit on the platform keeps the whole lifecycle on one record: the application and the terms the bank issued against, every amendment in sequence, the documents presented, the discrepancies raised and how they were resolved, and the settlement that closed it — with an audit trail across all of it.
The application itself comes in four forms, because the credit does: conventional or Murabaha, local or international. Each carries the fields and the default document set that belong to it — a local credit does not offer sea shipment, a Murabaha credit is structured as one. Within any of them the credit can be marked transferable, revolving, standby, or more than one at once.
The shape of the flow
The credit’s own lifecycle. Application, issuance, presentation and settlement — the same record from first request to final payment.
How it works on TradeOrigin
One record, from the application to the last payment.
Start from a template, or from scratch
Terms you issue repeatedly — a beneficiary, a document set, a payment term — are saved as a template and applied to a new application in one step. What is left is the part that actually changes: transaction number and date, amount and currency, and the shipment.
Apply for the credit
The applicant keys the terms — beneficiary, amount, tenor, expiry, the documents required, the goods description — and submits it to the issuing bank.
Bank issues, beneficiary is advised
The issuing bank reviews and issues; the credit reaches the beneficiary through the advising bank, with the terms visible to both sides.
Amend as the trade changes
Shipment dates move and quantities change. Amendments attach to the same credit in sequence rather than arriving as loose attachments.
Pre-check before you present
The exporter can run an AI check over the documents before presentation, against the terms of this credit: whether the documents agree with the credit and with each other, whether the goods are described consistently and the HS code matches that description, whether anything in the shipment is prohibited or restricted for the route it takes, and whether any party or country involved is sanctioned. It is assistance for the beneficiary — it is not the bank examining, and it does not bind anyone. Its value is catching the discrepancy on day one rather than day nine.
Present and check documents
The beneficiary presents against the credit. Checking happens against the terms on the record, and any discrepancy is raised on it.
Settle
On compliant documents the credit settles — at sight or at maturity — and the record closes with the full history intact.
Who it is for
Murabaha as a first-class form
A Murabaha credit is not a conventional one with a different label. It gets its own application, its own fields and its own document defaults, local or cross-border.
Opening credits
You open letters of credit regularly and spend more time chasing amendments and discrepancies than negotiating the trade.
Presenting under them
You want to see the credit and its amendments as they stand, not as they were three emails ago, before you ship.
Running the operation
Applications, amendments and presentations arriving in one structured place instead of an inbox.
What you get
One version of the credit
The terms and every amendment sit in sequence on the record, so nobody presents against a stale copy.
Discrepancies raised in the open
Raised against the record, seen by both sides, and resolved with the history attached.
No re-keying
The credit can be read out of the uploaded document rather than typed in twice.
Four checks before a bank sees it
Document consistency, HS code against the goods described, prohibited and restricted items, and sanctions exposure — run together, each one a flag for a person to look at rather than a verdict.
Templates for what repeats
The same beneficiary and the same document set, applied in one step, so the only thing you fill in is what changed.
Every currency the trade uses
Amounts are denominated in any ISO 4217 currency, not a short list of the usual ones.
An audit trail through settlement
Who did what and when, from application to final payment.
What the bank will ask for
Uploaded once, against the deal, and visible only to the counterparties on it.
Questions
How is this different from LC Confirmation?
Confirmation adds a second bank’s undertaking to a credit that already exists. Execution is the credit itself — opening it, amending it, presenting under it and settling it.
Do you support Islamic credits?
Yes. Murabaha is one of the four application forms, alongside conventional, in both local and international versions. It is a separate form rather than a checkbox on a conventional one, because the fields and the default documents differ.
Can a credit be transferable and revolving at once?
Yes. Transferable, revolving and standby are selected together rather than as one exclusive choice, because a credit can be more than one of them.
What does the AI actually check?
Four things. The documents against the credit and each other — amounts, dates, parties, descriptions and the terms the credit sets. The HS code against the goods described, because a code that does not match the description is the kind of mismatch that stops a payment or a customs clearance. Prohibited and restricted items, for the goods and the route they travel. Sanctions exposure on the parties and countries on the deal. Each returns a flag and the reason for it, for someone to act on.
If the check passes, is the shipment cleared?
No. A clean check means nothing obvious was found in what it was given; it is not a customs ruling, an export licence, or a legal opinion on whether goods may move. Classification and licensing stay your responsibility, and the bank's examination stays the bank's.
Does the AI pre-check replace the bank's examination?
No, and the platform is explicit about the difference. The pre-check is assistance for the exporter before presentation. The examination that decides whether a presentation complies is the bank's, under UCP 600, and nothing on the platform substitutes for it.
Can a credit executed here also be confirmed or discounted?
Yes, and by the beneficiary directly. Both are raised against the issued credit, with the reference, parties, banks, amount, places and payment terms already filled in from the record — the beneficiary only states the terms it wants and which banks to ask. The record stays whole rather than splitting across products.
Does the bank still issue through SWIFT?
Issuance happens the way the bank issues. What changes is that the application, the amendments and the presentation live somewhere both sides can see.
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