By JACK KAPICA
Globe and Mail Update

CCEWeb a has partnered with Adobe Systems to take international business paperwork on-line.

CCEWeb, a Toronto-based service provider to financial institutions involved in international merchandise trade, calls its creation the @GlobalTrade Secure Payment and Trade Management System, a method of securing banking documents using Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) software, created by its Acrobat program.

The system, an Adobe spokeswoman said on Monday, eliminates paperwork generated by the importing and exporting process, promising to save millions of dollars worth of the costs involved with processing and shipping documents.

The system makes it possible for documentary credit to be issued and advised over the Internet from anywhere in the world, eliminating the need to pay cash in advance for purchases. It also abolishes delays caused by discrepancies in paper-based processing and allows tracking of the entire transaction process on-line in real time.

The United Nations has estimated that $640-billion (U.S.) is spent annually processing the paperwork associated with international trade, the Adobe spokeswoman said.

The CCEWeb system, currently being evaluated, is due to be launched late this year.

Among banks testing the system are Dresdner Bank, Overseas Union Bank and Premier Bank. With the @GlobalTrade system, banks can review on-line documentation from importers, exporters and trade service providers as part of the international trade process. The banks can then offer their trade processing services to other banks and to a broader selection of importers and exporters.

"Our system features Adobe Acrobat 5.0 because it offers digital signatures and forms, XML data input as well as on-line collaboration on documents," CCEWeb CEO Jacob Katsman said in a release. "This reduces costs to authenticate paper documents, courier costs to send original copies, as well as resources to process XML data."

Acrobat's ability to embed XML information means that data can be included in electronic forms and documents, to save on input costs and data maintenance. Electronic documents can retain the same look as the paper versions.