Your LC Takes 7 to 10 Days to Process.

Here Is Where the Time Actually Goes.

You have shipped the goods. The vessel has sailed. Your buyer's letter of credit is open and waiting.

On paper, you should be days away from getting paid.

In practice, you are about to spend probably the next week and a half navigating one of the most friction-heavy processes in global trade.

And most of that friction happens before your documents ever reach the bank counter.

Step 1: Getting the Original Bill of Lading (Days 1 to 2)

The moment your cargo loads, the clock starts. But not in your favor.

Your carrier issues the original Bill of Lading, typically in a set of three originals. These are negotiable instruments. Whoever holds them has title to the cargo.

That makes them extraordinarily valuable. And extraordinarily difficult to move quickly.

If your carrier's documentation office is in a different city or country from your port of shipment, you are already waiting. The originals need to be physically produced, signed by an authorized officer, and dispatched.

For many shipping lines, this process alone takes 24 to 48 hours after the vessel sails.

You cannot start your LC presentation without them.

While you wait, your treasury team is already watching the drawing expiry date on the LC. Your freight forwarder is chasing the carrier's documentation desk. Your operations team is coordinating with the chamber of commerce for the certificate of origin.

Everyone is moving. But nothing can be submitted yet.

Step 2: Assembling the Full Document Set (Days 2 to 3)

An LC presentation is not just the Bill of Lading. By the time you are ready to present to the bank, you will typically need:

• The original Bill of Lading (full set, usually 3/3 originals)
• Commercial invoice, in the exact format and wording specified by the LC
• Packing list, line-item accurate and matching the invoice
• Certificate of origin, issued by the relevant chamber of commerce
• Insurance certificate or policy, if the LC calls for CIF terms
• Inspection certificate, if the buyer or their bank has specified one
• Weight or quality certificates, depending on commodity type
• Any additional documents the LC specifically requires

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Letter of Indemnity (LOI) and Telex Release will be covered in a separate blog post. Watch out for this space!

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Each of these comes from a different party. Your freight forwarder has the BL. Your chamber of commerce issues the certificate of origin — and may take a full day. Your surveyor issues the inspection certificate on their own timeline.

You are the one chasing all of them.

Here is what repeatedly catches exporters out: every single document must comply with the LC terms exactly. Not approximately. Not close enough. Exactly.

A difference between "Shipped on Board" and "On Board" in the BL notation. An invoice date that falls outside the LC drawing period. A certificate of origin referencing the wrong Harmonized System code, or didn't just mention the LC number.

Any of these is grounds for an LC discrepancy. And you may find out after the bank has spent five days examining the presentation.

Step 3: The Courier Problem (Days 2 to 4, Running in Parallel)

Original Bills of Lading cannot be emailed. They cannot be scanned and submitted in lieu of originals.

They are physical, negotiable documents. Your presenting bank requires the originals in hand before examination begins.

Which means you need a courier.

For a cross-border trade, this means booking tracked international express delivery, paying $100 to $200 per shipment, and waiting 1 to 3 business days.

Lost original Bills of Lading are not a theoretical risk. They happen.

When they do, obtaining indemnity from the carrier and issuing replacement documents can take weeks. During that time, the cargo may be released against a letter of indemnity (LOI), creating its own legal exposure.

Your bank will not start the examination clock until the originals are physically in their hands.

There is also a sequencing trap most exporters do not realize they are in. You cannot courier documents you have not yet assembled. So Steps 2 and 3 are theoretically parallel but practically sequential.

Any delay in getting any single document delays the entire submission.

Step 4: Bank Document Checking (Days 5 to 7)

Under UCP 600, the rules governing the vast majority of documentary credits globally, a nominated bank has up to 5 banking days to examine a presentation and determine compliance.

Five banking days. Most banks use most of it.

During those five days, your documents sit in a queue. A trade finance officer checks every field against every LC condition. The invoice amount against the LC amount. The BL notify party against the LC instruction. The shipment date against the latest date permitted.

This is careful, skilled work. The bank accepts financial liability if it pays against a non-compliant presentation.

But for you, those five days are dead time. Your working capital is not moving.

Step 5: Discrepancies and the Cycle That Follows (Days 7 to 10 and Beyond)

Industry data consistently place the discrepancy rate for first LC presentations at 60%-80%.

That means the majority of presentations come back with at least one issue.

When a discrepancy is found, the bank notifies you. You can correct and resubmit, request the LC issuer to waive the discrepancy, and instruct their bank accordingly. Each path adds time. A simple discrepancy might add 2 to 3 days.

The discrepancy rate is not primarily caused by careless exporters. It is caused by the complexity of matching multiple documents from multiple parties to a legal instrument drafted weeks earlier, under conditions that may not perfectly reflect what actually happened during shipment.

A vessel substitution. A port congestion reroute. A slight difference in commodity grade description.

Real trade is messy. LC documentation is rigid.

What This Looks Like End to End

None of this accounts for weekends, public holidays, or the fact that most steps happen sequentially rather than simultaneously.

You cannot courier documents you have not assembled. The bank cannot examine documents that have not arrived.

The Structural Problem

The delay is not caused by anyone doing their job badly.

Your freight forwarder is issuing documents correctly. Your bank is checking diligently. Your courier is delivering on schedule.

The delay is caused by paper.

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Every step in this process exists because the Bill of Lading is a physical document that must move through physical space.

Remove the paper, and the courier leg disappears. Document assembly becomes a digital workflow. Bank presentation happens in hours, not days. The checking window shortens because structured, machine-readable data can be verified faster than manually typed text across five different PDFs.

Electronic Bills of Lading and LC ePresentation make this possible.

The eBL is issued by the carrier, transferred directly to the exporter's digital wallet, and presented to the bank digitally. No courier. No physical handling. Title transfer is cryptographically verifiable.

And critically, it is accepted under UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 43/2023, the UK Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023, and across all MLETR-harmonised jurisdictions.

Most eBL platforms require both parties to be enrolled in the same closed network. TradeTrust is an open standard. Your buyer's bank does not need to be a BlockPeer customer to accept a TradeTrust framework eBL.

The acceptance is based on the standard, not the platform.

We will cover how eBL issuance and endorsement work in the next post. If you want to see what a 48-hour LC ePresentation looks like in practice and how an interoperable eBL facilitates it, book a 30-minute walkthrough.

BlockPeer easyBL is an IG-P&I-approved eBL platform that enables the issuance and endorsement of electronic Bills of Lading using the TradeTrust Framework.