The UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records is planned for adoption in the summer of 2017. The central term around which the Model Law builds up is electronic transferable record which is defi ned as a generic term which includes electronic equivalents for various documents of title and negotiable instruments. The complexity of this term arises from the fact that its notion is indirectly interfered by various jurisdictions providing different legal solutions in one hand and need for its uniform interpretation on the other hand. The paper analyzes the notion of the electronic transferable record form its origins in the US law to its latest defi nition provided by UNCITRAL. Both, functional and substantive approaches are analyzed and discussed with an aim to provide the general and universal definition of electronic transferable record from the theoretical prospective.