UK Export Finance (UKEF) – a government department and the UK’s official export credit agency (ECA) – is in a celebratory mood at the latest news from trade finance magazine and events organizer Global Trade Review (GTR).
Having been asked which financial institutions are the best internationally, the 10,000 senior management readers of GTR, have voted UKEF as the best ECA.
With companies such as Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and RBS all winning awards in the trade finance and global trade finance sectors of the GTR Leaders in Trade 2014, the award puts UKEF in good company.
It also follows UKEF’s delivery of innovations that include the launch of both the Direct Lending Facility, which supported its first loan in early October, and the Export Refinancing Facility, as well as the extension of guarantees for offshore Renminbi-denominated loans – a first for an ECA.
At the same time, UKEF has strengthened its short term product offering, supporting contracts worth over £1 billion already in 2014, with over 200 companies and contracts worth over £2 billion supported since their launch.
Added to the announcement that UKEF will guarantee a sukuk bond for the first time early next year and plans to simplify the application and approval process to help small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), it has been a highly productive year for UKEF.
Commenting on the award, David Godfrey, Chief Executive of UKEF said:
Over the past couple of years we have successfully introduced and embedded our regional team of export finance advisers, provided Airbus with credible and competitive capital markets funding solutions, and have secured eligibility for UKEF paper to be discounted at the Bank of England’s Discount Window – helping banks with their liquidity ratios.
Global Trade Review is a respected publication, whose trade conferences and seminars are among the best attended in the calendar. That it is their readers – banks, intermediaries, other ECAs and exporters – who have voted for us, is especially pleasing. This is a vote of confidence for the whole UKEF team and we are delighted.
About UKEF
UKEF is the UK’s export credit agency. UKEF helps UK exporters by providing insurance to exporters and guarantees to banks to share the risks of providing export finance. In addition, UKEF can make loans to overseas buyers of goods and services from the UK. UK Export Finance is the operating name of the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD).
UKEF:
- insures UK exporters against non-payment by their overseas buyers
- helps overseas buyers to purchase goods and services from UK exporters by
- guaranteeing or funding bank loans to finance the purchases
shares credit risks with banks to help exporters raise tender and contract bonds, in - accessing pre- and post-shipment working capital finance and in securing confirmations of letters of credit
- insures UK investors in overseas markets against political risks
