In today’s modern world, businesses are no longer restricted to operating solely in their country of residence.

It is now easier than ever to export services overseas, take advantage of export trade opportunities and grow businesses internationally.

However, when having made the decision to export, it is sometimes difficult to know where to begin.

For financial support, exporters can go to banks. Alternatively, there are other specialist financial organisations that can provide support, such as UK Export Finance (UKEF), a government department dedicated to providing support to UK Exporters.

UKEF can help businesses of any size looking to export by providing insurance to exporters, guarantees to banks and loans to overseas buyers of goods and services.

Through UKEF’s knowledge of the international market they can help you with anything from commercial insurance cover, to allow you to get into challenging markets, to performance guarantees, often required by overseas banks and investors.

UKEF is extremely flexible, helping a broad variety of businesses, from larger corporate organisations to smaller businesses.

Rather than provide an exhaustive list of all products available the main products are:

  • Bond Support Scheme – a guarantee from UKEF to the bank that it will receive amounts it has paid to a bondholder (e.g. performance bonds) if the bond is called upon and the bank cannot recover the amount paid in full from the exporter
  • Export Working Capital Scheme – guarantees to banks to cover the credit risks associated with export working capital facilities in respect of a specific export contract
  • Letter of Credit Guarantee Scheme – where a UK bank adds its confirmation to a letter of credit issued by an overseas bank for a UK export and doesn’t have risk appetite for the full amount
  • Export insurance policy – insures UK exporter against risk of not being paid or of not being able to recover costs of performing an export contract e.g. purchase of raw materials, as a result of buyer’s insolvency, political upheaval etc.

At Smailes Goldie we can help SMEs to realise the benefits of exporting, and to help them build the confidence and capability to take up the challenge.

For a free, no obligation consultation, please contact us here.