Trade Finance in Germany

An exporter wants to be paid before the goods leave its hands, and an importer wants the goods before it pays. Trade finance closes that gap with bank instruments. Under a letter of credit, the importer's bank promises to pay the exporter once the exporter presents the agreed documents, above all the bill of lading, which proves shipment and gives its holder the right to the goods. Most letters of credit follow the ICC rules UCP 600, and the ICC's eUCP, now in version 2.1, is the supplement for presenting those documents in electronic form. Banks also offer guarantees, documentary collections, forfaiting and supply chain finance.

For German exporters the federal government adds its own layer. The Export Credit Guarantees of the Federal Republic of Germany, known as Hermes cover, have protected exporters and banks against commercial and political payment defaults since 1949, in return for a premium based on the risk.

Germany has had a legal basis for the electronic bill of lading since the reform of its maritime trade law in 2013. Section 516 (2) of the German Commercial Code (HGB) treats an electronic record as equal to a bill of lading if it fulfills the same functions and its authenticity and integrity are ensured. Section 516 (3) lets the Federal Ministry of Justice set the details of issuing, presenting, returning and transferring such a record by ordinance. In an article for ICC Germany (in German), Tim Schommer wrote that the ministry had not used this power, because lawmakers wanted suitable forms and procedures to emerge in practice first.

That left banks and traders with a principle and no checklist. In an analysis by Eleanor Wragg for Global Trade Review, David Saive of the University of Oldenburg said that functional equivalence does not give enough guidance on what an electronic document has to fulfill. A working group of 22 experts under the patronage of ICC Germany, led by Hans Huber of Commerzbank and Saive, set out to define those requirements. Bills of exchange are a separate gap: in a Trade Finance Global podcast episode, Silja Calac of Banco Santander and Melih Esmer of EBS University discussed whether Germany should amend its bill of exchange law or write a new one for digital negotiable instruments.

The UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR), adopted on July 13, 2017, gives countries a template for electronic bills of lading, bills of exchange, promissory notes and warehouse receipts. Its central idea is control: a reliable method has to show who has exclusive control of the electronic record, which takes the place of holding the paper. The model law works with a central registry or a distributed ledger and prescribes neither. UNCITRAL's status list names the United Kingdom, France, Singapore and China among the states with laws based on it; Germany is not on the list.

The UK's Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023, in force since September 20, 2023, covers bills of lading, bills of exchange, promissory notes, warehouse receipts and marine insurance policies, among other documents. The German Electronic Securities Act (eWpG) does not fill the gap at home: it covers bearer bonds and shares, not trade documents.

Tokenization enters trade finance in two places. The document itself can become a token on a ledger that records who controls it, which is the MLETR model. The payment can move on new rails: a tokenized deposit or a stablecoin payment can be set to settle when the electronic bill of lading changes hands, so goods and money move at the same moment. The payment side still runs into the same questions as any cross-border payment, above all sanctions screening and correspondent banking.

Finance Loop is the meeting place for trade finance bankers in Germany and for the export and treasury teams they work with. It connects the finance, IT and AI communities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with events in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg.

Finance Loop supports When Banks Say 'No', a half-day payments seminar in Frankfurt for compliance, treasury, finance, export and legal teams. Julia Pfeil of Dentons covers sanctions and foreign trade law there, and Harald Knosp of International Business Service Corp shows how international payment routes are shifting. Hamburg, Germany's port city, has fintechs that sell to exporters, as the fintech in Hamburg page describes, and the sanctions compliance page covers the screening rules for every trade payment.

Trade finance is the set of bank instruments that pay for and secure international trade, among them letters of credit, guarantees, documentary collections, export credit and supply chain finance. The bank takes on part of the payment or delivery risk between exporter and importer.

Yes. Since 2013, section 516 (2) HGB has treated an electronic record as equal to a paper bill of lading if it fulfills the same functions and its authenticity and integrity are ensured. Section 516 (3) allows an ordinance with the technical details, which ICC Germany reported as not yet issued.

No. Germany is not on UNCITRAL's list of states with laws based on the Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records. The United Kingdom, France and Singapore are, among others.

A letter of credit is a payment instrument: the bank pays when the exporter presents the agreed documents. A bank guarantee is a safety net: the bank pays only if its client fails to pay or perform. Letters of credit mostly follow the ICC rules UCP 600, demand guarantees the ICC rules URDG 758.