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8th February 2008 – Remittance Advice Letters For many years we have accompanied the payment of claims and settlements of fees with a pro forma letter from our claims department stating the reason for the payment and advising the amount and date of payment. This practice was developed in the days when the majority of our business was transacted through the postal system and payment was effected using cheques. Until quite recently this system remained an effective way of informing people that the payment had been made and enabled them to match our payment to receipt of funds into their bank accounts. However these days the use of cheques has virtually ceased and nearly all payments are made by way of electronic transfers. Electronic transfers are faster and more reliable than cheques and arrive long before our letter. Almost all maritime related businesses are now equipped to deal with correspondence electronically. Therefore we intend to phase out our pro forma payment letters and replace them with electronic remittance advices instead. These remittance advices will be sent to the e-mail address of payees at the same time as the bank transaction is initiated thereby providing immediate confirmation of the payment. Electronic remittance advices will avoid the inefficiencies of paper and the postal system where mail could get lost or misdirected and would inevitably arrive after the payment had been received. We will start to introduce this change at the end of February 2008
to all Members and suppliers for whom we have a current e-mail address
and we will extend this system to everyone else as we update our e-mail
contacts records. We will, however, still retain a paper based system
for those who do not have electronic mail boxes or facilities to receive
payments electronically.
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