The collection form of payments arose during the development of international trade. It is not known exactly when the first operation was carried out, but nowadays payments for collection play an important role in export-import operations, which indicates their relevance. However, this rather convenient form of payment was not widely spread in Russia, which is associated with the imperfection of the legislation, as well as the low business culture of entrepreneurs.
The main scheme of payments for collection is quite simple. It contains such parties as:
- principal - a person who instructs a remitting bank to conduct a collection operation;
- remitting bank;
- a bank that receives funds (collection);
- a bank that provides documents to the payer (representing);
- payer for collection.
Settlements for collection are accompanied by the following general procedure:
- the principal and the payer draw up contract documents, in accordance with which the principal performs the shipment of goods;
- the principal receives documents from the carrier and transfers them to the remitting bank.
The latter checks the set of documents (mainly on the correspondence of the external characteristics of the documents to those indicated in the collection).
If there are no errors, the remitting bank sends them with the collection order to the collection bank:
- the bank (collection or other representing the bank) sends the payer documents and collection order for verification. After which the payer pays the required amount, receives documents on hand;
- funds are transferred to the remitting bank, which credits them to the principal's account.
Settlement for collection assumes that a package of documents for products can include both exclusively financial documents (net collection) and commercial paper (documentary collection).
When issuing a collection order, one of three schemes can be selected:
- documents against payment. The scheme is applied if the collection bank can receive payment immediately (sometimes in cash);
- the scheme "documents against acceptance", when the payer issues a bill of exchange ;
- operation of collection with acceptance. The bank (collecting) transfers to the payer a bill of exchange for acceptance, upon receipt of which it stores both the bill and a package of documents until payment is received. Further, the documents are transferred to the payer.
What are the convenient and inconvenient payments for collection? On the one hand, this form provides faster turnover through the separation of the movement of goods and payment. It is also convenient that the payer receives the right to the goods without the need to withdraw funds from circulation in advance. But you also need to take into account that collection payments are risky enough for the principal (supplier), who can send the goods at a certain probability of the payer's refusal to fulfill payment obligations. In addition, there is a time lag (often quite large) between payment and receipt of cargo, which can travel by sea from one port to another for more than a week.