UNCITRAL Colloquium on Digital Payments and Paperless Trade, 19-22 January 2026, Vienna
Colloquium on Digital Payments and Paperless Trade
Dates of Colloquium: Monday, 19 January to Thursday, 22 January 2026
Venue: Vienna International Centre, Vienna
Time: 9:30 – 12:30; 14:00 – 17:00 Vienna time (Central European Time) except for the first day of the Colloquium, Monday, 19 January 2026, when the meeting will commence at 10:00 a.m. (Central European Time).
At its 58th session (Vienna, 7-23 July 2025) (see A/80/17, para. 245, 270 and 347), the Commission requested the UNCITRAL secretariat to undertake exploratory and preparatory work on digital payments and paperless trade respectively, including by holding colloquiums on these topics. In line with that request, the secretariat is organizing a Colloquium in two parts: Part I on digital payments (19-20 January 2026) and Part II on paperless trade (21-22 January 2026). The Colloquium is intended to advance the exploratory and preparatory work, consistent with UNCITRAL’s efforts to provide an enabling legal framework and guidance supportive of end-to-end trade digitalization, of which digital payments and paperless trade are two key components. The outcomes of the Colloquium will be presented to the Commission for consideration at its fifty-ninth session (New York, 22 June – 10 July 2026).
Part I (Digital payments) aims to (i) map and analyse existing international and domestic legal frameworks governing digital payments, with a view to identifying specific legal issues, challenges and gaps that could inform any future legislative work by UNCITRAL, and (ii) refine potential legislative options to consider the most suitable approach to addressing the emerging challenges and gaps identified, including whether there would be a need to revise the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Credit Transfers (1992) or to develop a new instrument. Particular attention is to be paid to intersections with existing regulatory frameworks and clearly defining the scope of possible future work with UNCITRAL's mandate and to future-proofing such work, ensuring its adaptability to new forms of digital assets.
Part II (Paperless trade) aims to provide additional insight on the features of an enabling legal framework for paperless trade, including by identifying any legislative gap, for consideration by the Commission. Given the broad scope of application of UNCITRAL texts, such as the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce (1996) (MLEC), the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (2017) (MLETR) and the UNCITRAL Model Law on the Use and Cross-border Recognition of Identity Management and Trust Services (2022) (MLIT), an enabling legal framework may already be established based on existing texts. Part II will be complemented by webinars discussing related topics, such as policy options for paperless trade and their legal implications, and the progress towards common legal and technical standards for digital trade.
Participants in the Colloquium are invited to contribute to the discussion of those issues. The secretariat is making arrangements to broadcast the session via UN Web TV. Detailed information about access to the Vienna International Centre and connection details, if any, will be communicated to registered participants by email in due course.
The outcomes of the Colloquium will be presented to the Commission for consideration at its fifty-ninth session (New York, 22 June - 10 July 2026).
Programme (forthcoming)
Flyer
Exploratory work on digital payments - Concept note
Preparatory work on paperless trade - Concept note
Presentations (forthcoming)
Video recordings (forthcoming)
Events in preparation of the Colloquium on paperless trade
In preparation for Part II of the Colloquium on paperless trade, the secretariat is organizing two events to take stock of trends, policy and legal issues in paperless trade.
Webinar "Paperless trade and trade digitalization: state of the art" – 19 November 2025
Speakers: Silvia Sorescu, Policy Analyst, OECD, and Satya Prasad Sahu, Senior Trade Facilitation Specialist, the World Bank Group.
OECD and OSCE have recently issued policy documents on paperless trade (The Digitalisation of Trade Documents and Processes: Going Paperless Today, Going Paperless Tomorrow (OECD); A Practical Guide to Cross-border Facilitation (OSCE)). Moreover, the World Bank has released the Digital Trade Regulatory Readiness (DTRR) database to measure trade digitalization. One DTRR pillar refers to electronic transactions, and one policy area to paperless trade. These documents provide a guiding framework in which UNCITRAL can carry out its preparatory work on paperless trade and trade digitalization, mindful that, while paperless trade, as a B2G process, is part of end-to-end trade digitalization, it may still require specific enabling legal solutions.
Summary of webinar
Flyer and programme with speakers
Video recordings (forthcoming)
The second webinar will take place on 17 December 2025 as a hybrid side event during the forty-seventh session of UNCITRAL Working Group VI (15-19 December 2025, Vienna). It will delve into the matter of how the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) and related reliability standards are shaping the digital trade landscape, leading to commonality of document management systems between the MLETR, the UNCITRAL – Unidroit Model Law on Warehouse Receipts (MLWR) and the United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents (NCD), and possibly beyond. The webinar will benefit from insights and experience by business and policy stakeholders active in the area of digital trade.
Hybrid side event during the forty-seventh session of UNCITRAL Working Group VI: “Uniform standards for reliability assessment” – 17 December 2025
Speakers: Marina Comninos, Co-Head, ICE Digital Trade, GUO Yu, Associate Professor, Peking University Law School, and Keith Jansa, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Governance Council.
Technical standards developed for assessing the reliability of the methods used to implement the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR) are shaping the digital trade landscape, leading to commonality of document management systems across legislation based on MLETR, such as the UNCITRAL – Unidroit Model Law on Warehouse Receipts (MLWR), and the forthcoming United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents (NCD). Thus, MLETR-compliant systems can be immediately used to implement MLWR and NCD, and possibly other future laws.
Register
Flyer
Video recording (forthcoming)