Import letter of creditForeign exchange refers to the short-term financing provided by a bank upon receipt of a foreign bill at the request of the applicant to pay the amount under the bill。On this basis, after receiving the documents under the letter of credit, the issuing bank first pays the bill, and then delivers the documents to the importer in accordance with the import foreign exchange agreement with the importer and the trust receipt issued by the importer, and the importer delivers the payment and interest to the issuing bank after the market sale。Therefore, the essence of imported foreign exchange is a short-term loan from the bank to the importer。
It can be seen from the meaning of import foreign exchange protection that its operation is generally divided into three steps: the issuing bank pays according to the import foreign exchange guarantee agreement signed with the importer;The importer receives the shipping documents on trust receipt;After selling the goods, the importer returns the goods to the bank and the trust receipt。While foreign exchange protection for imports provides financing facilities for importers, the risks for banks are obvious。
The risks often faced in the process of import negotiation are:
I. The risk of falling prices of goods
When an import enterprise signs an import contract with a foreign investor, the market price of the commodity is optimistic and the import is profitable, but when the commodity is imported and sold, the price drops sharply, and the original profit is a loss。At this time, the repayment ability of the enterprise will have problems, and the risk will appear。
Second, the risk of misappropriation of funds by enterprises
Although the import enterprise sold the goods and successfully recovered the payment, in other emergencies, or debt disputes, the account was frozen and deducted, and the mortgage remittance due from the mortgage bank could not be returned on time。At this point, the bank's risk will be inevitable。
3. Exchange rate fluctuation risk
If the bank bets the import company that the remittance currency is RMB and the domestic loan recovery is also RMB, there is no risk of exchange rate changes。However, if the bet is in dollars or other foreign currencies, the company should bear the risk of the depreciation of the yuan。
Therefore, how to prevent the risk of import negotiation has become the focus of attention of banks。
Regarding this problem, we can start from the following aspects:
First of all, banks should establish import foreign exchange guarantee mechanism in strict accordance with the requirements of the current guarantee Law, so as to ensure that all kinds of guarantees are legal and effective, and will not cause contradictions。In the protection of imported foreign exchange, banks generally transfer the pledged goods or documents to the importer, which may cause the pledge to be invalid or the effectiveness of the pledge cannot be confronted with a third party。The court will consider that the bank has waived the property insurance, so the guarantor is only liable for security beyond the insured value of the property。Therefore, the bank should require the guarantor, when signing a written guarantee contract, to clearly specify that after the bank delivers the goods or documents to the importer, it will voluntarily assume part of the responsibility, including the claim of the goods security, so as to avoid the risk of loan loss due to the transfer of quality。
The second is to strictly examine the credit and ability of foreign exchange guarantee applicants and guarantors, and comprehensively investigate the credit status of issuing applicants。The risks of import foreign exchange protection business mainly come from the applicant's business operation ability and performance payment ability。Banks should clearly recognize that customer credit risk is the most basic risk。This measure is an effective measure to prevent the inherent defects of the foreign exchange protection mechanism。In practice, some foreign exchange protection applicants have maliciously colluded with guarantors to maliciously evade bank debts。Banks should pay particular attention to guarantees and transactions between the relevant companies, as well as the impact on the import foreign exchange protection business。
The third is to strictly grasp the conditions for the use of the credit limit, and scientifically match the relationship between the credit limit and the margin ratio。The use amount of the letter of credit should meet some basic conditions。Under the premise of meeting the conditions, the use amount of the letter of credit can effectively control the trade financing risks under the letter of credit。
Fourth, improve the information disclosure system, enhance the risk prevention awareness of micro-financial entities, and improve the asymmetric state of bank financing information。The basic means to reverse this state of affairs are comprehensive, accurate and timely information disclosure and reporting systems, and comprehensive risk management。That is, through systematic information processing, the risk of all levels of business units of the entire organization is centrally controlled and managed。Classify and integrate internal and external information resources of the bank, establish information system, risk control system and decision support system, and form an asset liability management system with risk management as the core。
Fifth, strengthen post-loan management。The relevant departments of banks shall keep abreast of the foreign exchange applicants' business conditions, banking conditions, property conditions, sales of imported goods and international and domestic market information。In case of foreign exchange anomalies, preventive measures and remedial measures should be taken in time。Strengthen the risk management of imported foreign exchange, in principle do not allow passive foreign exchange to be pledged to customers, and approve special circumstances。