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UK Export Finance
The UK’s export credit agency
Our mission
We advance prosperity by ensuring no viable UK export fails for lack of finance or insurance, doing that sustainably and at no net cost to the taxpayer.
We are the UK government’s Export Credit Agency
We work with over 100 private credit insurers and lenders to help UK companies access export finance – the loans, insurance policies or bank guarantees that enable international trade to take place as easily and securely as possible.
UKEF has 100 years’ experience supporting UK businesses to achieve global success. As the world’s oldest Export Credit Agency (ECA) we have a proud history of innovation, while maintaining standards and principles.
Now, at the outset of our second century, we continue to innovate, improve and diversify in order to ensure that UK exporters of all shapes and sizes, backed by the UK’s world-class ECA, can achieve sustained international success.
Publication scheme
Our publication scheme on GOV.UK specifies the categories of information that UKEF regularly publishes and explains how to get that information.
- Who we are and what we do
Including our organisational structure, roles and responsibilities. - What we spend and how we spend it
Financial information about projected and actual income, expenditure, procurement, contracts and financial audits. - What our priorities are and how we are doing
Our annual report and Business Plan. - How we make decisions
Details of our decision-making processes and records of our decisions. - Our policies and procedures
Protocols, policies and procedures for providing services, and responsibilities, including our complaints procedure and record management and personal data policies. - Lists and registers
Details of the department’s public registers, asset registers and disclosure logs. - Modern slavery statement
Working in partnership with the private sector
We work with over 100 private credit insurers and lenders to help UK companies access export finance (the particular class of loans, insurance policies or bank guarantees that enable international trade to take place as easily and securely as possible). We exist to complement not compete with the private sector. Read more about our partnerships with the private sector.
We help UK companies to:
- win export contracts by providing attractive financing terms to their buyers
- fulfil contracts by supporting working capital loans
- get paid by insuring against buyer default
We can support exports for any size of company and across all sectors, from capital goods to services and intangibles such as intellectual property.
We report to the Secretary of State for International Trade and the Minister for Exports, and operating under the consent of HM Treasury. As part of HM Government’s offer of support for trade, UKEF is strategically and operationally aligned with the Department for International Trade and is an integral element of the Government’s Export Strategy.
Operating under the Export & Investment Guarantees Act (1991) as amended (EIGA),
UK Export Finance is the operating name of the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD).
You can read relevant legislation: the Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991, as amended by the Industry and Exports (Financial Support) Act 2009 and the Small Business Enterprise and Employment Act 2015.
