Documents against acceptance (D/A)

BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED 2026-11-01

// THE SHORT ANSWER

Documents against acceptance is a documentary collection in which the buyer's bank releases the shipping documents — and with them the goods — when the buyer accepts a bill of exchange promising to pay at a later date, rather than when it pays. The buyer gets the goods and the credit period; the seller holds an accepted bill, a clearer claim than an invoice but still only as good as the buyer. A desk reads an exporter's ledger split between letters of credit, documents against acceptance and open account, because each puts the risk in a different place.

BASIS  Practitioner judgment from sixteen years in commercial banking, set out in How Bankers Think (Highbank Press, 2026). Every borrower on this site is a composite constructed for teaching, not a client. The market is mid-market commercial lending as practised in New Zealand and Australia; where a convention differs elsewhere, the page says so.