Letters of Credit Specialist

About this role

Trade Finance & Insurance makes it possible for a seller to ship to a buyer they have never met — credit insurance, letters of credit, guarantees and the risk view behind them.

Check document sets against the credit before they go to the bank. A misplaced comma on a bill of lading can hold up payment for weeks, and catching it is the entire value of this role.

Cross-border trade fails on trust and on documents, in that order. The instruments here are old and unforgiving: a discrepancy on a document set can hold payment for weeks, and a credit limit set carelessly becomes a loss six months later. Multiple jurisdictions, multiple regulators, and rules that reward people who have read the actual text.

Primary responsibilities

• Examine documents under letters of credit against UCP 600 and identify discrepancies before the bank does
• Prepare and check document sets — invoice, bill of lading, certificate of origin, insurance certificate, inspection certificate — so they present clean
• Manage LC issuance and amendment, and get the terms workable before the credit is issued rather than amending later
• Track presentation deadlines and expiry, since missing one loses the protection entirely
• Resolve discrepancies with the bank and the counterparty and get payment released
• Advise the operations team on what the credit actually requires them to produce

Skills required

Day to day this role works with Letters of Credit, UCP 600, Document Checking and SWIFT.

• Three or more years checking LC documents
• Detail obsessive in the way this work demands
• Familiar with MT700 series SWIFT messages
• Three or more years examining documents under letters of credit