ECA product map for export finance
An ECA product map for bank export finance desks organises officially supported instruments by form of support, obligor location, tenor band and risk covered, so that credit committees can place a facility inside the export credit agency toolkit without collapsing distinct legal products into a single label. This guide sits beside the export credit agencies hub and the OECD Arrangement desk primer.
Under the OECD Arrangement, official support takes the forms of export credit guarantee or insurance (pure cover); official financing support through direct credit or financing, refinancing, or interest-rate support; and any combination of those forms. National agencies then brand those forms as buyer-credit guarantees, supplier-credit insurance, direct loans, interest make-up, bond support, working-capital guarantees and related products. The Arrangement disciplines medium and long-term officially supported export credits of two years or more among Participants. Short-term insurance, domestic working-capital programmes and investment political risk insurance (PRI) sit beside that map rather than inside every Arrangement ceiling.
ECA product taxonomy by form of official support
The first cut on any ECA product file is the form of official support.
Pure cover is guarantee or insurance. The bank or exporter remains the funded lender or the unpaid seller. The agency covers defined commercial and/or political causes of loss up to a stated percentage. Arrangement-aligned buyer-credit pure cover commonly supports up to 85% of export contract value after a minimum 15% down payment. UKEF's Buyer Credit Facility is a guarantee to a bank making a loan to an overseas buyer so that capital goods, services and/or intangibles can be purchased.
The lending bank is protected against non-payment of principal and interest instalments due under the guaranteed loan for whatever reason, within product terms. UKEF states that the maximum amount available under the loan is 85% of contract value and that a minimum of 15% must be paid directly to the exporter by the buyer before the loan starts to be repaid.
Official financing support is direct credit or financing, refinancing, or interest-rate support. Direct lending places the agency or its treasury vehicle as funder. Interest-rate support or interest make-up can leave commercial banks as funders while official support brings the interest cost toward a commercial interest reference rate (CIRR) or other supported rate path. Floating-rate covered lending sits beside CIRR official financing support as a distinct pricing path, compared in CIRR vs floating rate and in direct lending vs interest make up.
Combinations are common. A Participant may guarantee a commercial bank loan while also providing interest-rate support, or may refinance a bank after disbursement. Arrangement Article 5 treats combinations as official support and therefore as Arrangement-scoped when tenor and export scope otherwise qualify.
ECA premium is charged for credit risk on pure cover and is embedded in all-in cost on official financing support. Minimum premium rates for Arrangement Categories 1 to 7, buyer-risk category overlays and market-benchmark rules are set in the Arrangement annexes rather than in national marketing names.
Buyer credit, supplier credit and insurance products
The second cut is who is the primary credit obligor under the export contract and the loan.
A buyer credit structure places the loan with the overseas buyer or a borrower for the buyer's account. The exporter is paid under the loan as amounts fall due under the export contract, subject to the facility remaining available. UKEF's Buyer Credit Facility states that the exporter is paid as though it has a cash contract, subject to the terms and conditions of the loan agreement and that loan continuing to be made available to the borrower.
Loans can be made in main trading currencies and in more than 60 local currencies. UKEF can consider corporate, sovereign and public buyers and lists limited recourse project finance, Islamic finance, public-private partnerships and capital markets refinancing among structures it can support. Eligibility for that facility includes a UK business base for the exporter, a contract value of at least £5 million or foreign-currency equivalent, an acceptable lending bank, and a repayment period of at least two years.
A supplier credit structure keeps credit with the exporter, often documented through deferred payment under the export contract, promissory notes, bills of exchange or a forfaiting sale of those receivables. Pure cover then protects the exporter or the purchasing bank against buyer non-payment. The comparison of allocation sits in buyer credit vs supplier credit.
Export credit insurance and export credit guarantee are the two pure-cover legal skins. Insurance typically runs as a policy for the exporter or bank. Guarantee typically runs as a guarantee of a loan or of payment obligations. The institutional comparison is in export credit insurance vs guarantee. UKEF's Export Insurance Policy (EXIP) can insure exporters for up to 95% of potential losses under an export contract where private-market cover is unavailable for standalone policies, with eligibility that includes a UK business base, an overseas buyer in a covered country, and at least 20% UK content by value including profit margin.
UKEF is prohibited, under UK international trade agreement obligations, from supporting export insurance with a horizon of risk of less than 24 months in EU member states, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the USA, which are treated as marketable-risk destinations for that short-term band.
US EXIM describes export credit insurance as covering up to 95% of sales invoices against buyer non-payment, with policies available for a single buyer, a few buyers or an entire export portfolio, and notes that insured foreign receivables are more likely to be included in a borrowing base. That short-term insurance family is product-adjacent to Arrangement medium and long-term buyer credit rather than identical to it.
Comprehensive cover blends commercial and political causes of loss. Political-only cover leaves commercial default outside the policy or guarantee. National branding (Hermes cover, UKEF EXIP, EXIM multi-buyer policies) does not change that institutional distinction.
Supplementary export insurance can sit beside buyer finance. UKEF states that exporters who win contracts supported by a Buyer Credit Facility may be eligible for a supplementary EXIP, and that private-market refusal is not part of the eligibility criteria for that supplementary form. The product addresses the residual risk that buyer financing becomes unavailable and the exporter is not paid under the export contract.
Working capital, bonds and contingent products
Not every ECA product is medium or long-term buyer credit.
Working-capital loan guarantees support pre-export production and inventory for exporters. They are typically domestic or short-term facilities secured on export contracts or purchase orders rather than Arrangement-scoped repayment terms of two years or more to an overseas buyer. EXIM markets a working-capital loan guarantee as a cash-flow tool for fulfilling export orders. Desks keep that product in the working-capital column of the map, not in the Arrangement MLT column.
Bond and contingent products support tender and performance obligations. Bid bond, performance bond, advance payment guarantee and retention bond forms appear in export tenders and construction packages. Some ECAs guarantee banks that issue those instruments so that issuing capacity does not constrain the exporter. Those products cover call risk on the instrument, not medium-term buyer credit amortisation. They often sit beside, and sometimes condition, the main buyer-credit facility.
Letter-of-credit confirmation support and related short-term bank-risk products protect confirming banks against issuing-bank or country risk on trade instruments. They belong with short-term trade finance rather than with Arrangement MLT buyer credit, even when the same agency brand appears on both.
Untied loan guarantee and other untied programmes finance overseas projects or buyers without a classic tied export contract from the supporting country, subject to national mandate rules. Arrangement tied-aid and trade-related untied-aid chapters sit beside core export-credit financial terms. Desks treat untied products as a separate column because content, notification and developmental tests differ from tied export credit. The glossary anchors for that boundary are tied and untied financing and national content requirements.
Project finance, capital markets and multi-source packages
An ECA product can sit inside a project finance capital structure. The Arrangement defines a project-finance transaction for official-support purposes as an export of goods or services to an independent project company where lenders look to project cash flows for repayment and to project assets as security. UKEF expressly lists limited recourse project finance among Buyer Credit Facility structures. The collateral reading is in the project finance security package guide. Cover ratios such as debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) remain bank tools beside Arrangement down payment, tenor and premium ceilings.
Capital-markets refinancing moves the funded exposure from a bank loan book to noteholders while retaining official pure cover. UKEF lists capital markets refinancing among structures it can support under Buyer Credit Facility guidance. Islamic finance and public-private partnership structures follow the same official-support taxonomy when the agency guarantee or financing is the Arrangement-scoped element.
Multi-source packages combine ECA pure cover or direct lending with commercial bank tranches, multilateral A/B loans and, where used, investment guarantees. Arrangement market-benchmark syndication rules for asset-backed or project-finance packages require, among other conditions, that at least 25% of the syndicate be commercial market loans or guarantees without bilateral or multilateral official support, and that parties stand on pari passu financial terms including the security package. Direct-lending all-in cost and pure-cover premium then reference commercial participant pricing subject to minimum actuarial floors and notification duties.
National agencies that implement these products include UKEF, US EXIM, Hermes AGA, SACE, Bpifrance, Atradius DSB, EDC, JBIC, NEXI, EKN, Finnvera, KEXIM and K-SURE.
Boundary with investment insurance and multilateral guarantees
Investment political-risk insurance and multilateral credit guarantees are adjacent products, not Arrangement export-credit substitutes.
MIGA provides political risk guarantees, credit guarantees and trade finance guarantees under the World Bank Group Guarantee Platform. Political-risk cover addresses perils such as expropriation, currency inconvertibility and transfer restriction, war and civil disturbance, and breach of contract. MIGA states that it issues guarantees for periods of up to 15 years, and occasionally 20 years, with a minimum length of three years; that it is an insurer, not a lender; and that it does not provide export credit insurance.
Eligibility generally requires investors who are nationals of, or entities incorporated in, MIGA member countries other than the host country, with a limited host-country national exception when funds come from abroad and the host country joins the application. Comparison with private PRI sits in MIGA vs private PRI.
Berne Union materials distinguish short-term trade credit, medium and long-term export credit, and investment insurance. That industry map aligns with the desk column structure: short-term insurance and working capital; Arrangement-scoped MLT pure cover and official financing; investment PRI and multilateral guarantees. MIGA cover and currency inconvertibility belong in the investment and political-risk column. Commercial risk on export credits belongs in the ECA comprehensive or commercial-cover column.
Eligibility overlays that cut across products
Every ECA product column is crossed by national eligibility overlays that are not Arrangement financial-term ceilings but still decide whether cover exists.
Content and foreign-supply rules determine how much non-national content can sit inside a supported export contract. Arrangement local-cost caps (40% of export contract value for Category I destinations and 50% for Category II, with prior notification above 15%) constrain local-cost support where Participants use them. National content percentages remain programme-specific. UKEF's standalone Export Insurance Policy requires at least 20% UK content by value, including profit margin, which is a national insurance filter rather than an Arrangement Chapter II ceiling.
Environmental, social and human rights due diligence, anti-bribery processes and sustainable lending filters apply across buyer credit and insurance. UKEF states that all supported transactions must satisfy those processes and that a transaction may not be supported if sanctions are imposed on the country of the overseas buyer. High-carbon and fossil-fuel exclusions appear in national insurance guidance; UKEF states that it cannot insure exports related to fossil fuel extraction such as oil or gas extraction. Arrangement Participants also apply Sector Understanding overlays for climate, nuclear, aircraft and ship packages where those annexes govern tenor and eligibility.
Country cover indicators and horizon-of-risk rules decide whether short-term insurance or MLT cover is on offer for a buyer country. Marketable-risk prohibitions for sub-24-month insurance in designated high-income destinations are a short-term insurance overlay, not an Arrangement MLT ceiling. UKEF's country cover indicators distinguish cash or short-term cover availability from medium and long-term positions, so the same buyer country can be open for one product column and closed for another.
Premium and interest-rate floors travel with the Arrangement-scoped columns. Minimum premium rates for Categories 1 to 7, buyer-risk category overlays, market-benchmark rules for high-income OECD and high-income euro-area obligors, and CIRR construction for fixed-rate official financing support are set in the Arrangement annexes. National agencies may charge above floors; they may not undercut them for Participant support. Floating-rate covered lending remains a distinct path beside CIRR official financing support.
Claims processes, waiting periods and recoveries are product-specific. A guarantee of a bank loan, an exporter insurance policy and a bond support facility do not share one claims chronology. Waiting periods, dispute exclusions and recovery cooperation duties differ between pure cover for exporters and pure cover for banks. UKEF export insurance guidance states that unresolved contractual disputes are ordinarily outside cover until resolved or judged in the exporter's favour, and that cargo or shipping insurance is separate.
Broker and distribution channels also differ by product. UKEF pays brokers a 15% commission on successful Export Insurance Policy placements, up to a maximum of £25,000, out of the exporter's premium and at no extra cost to the exporter. Buyer Credit Facility applications run through bank and underwriting channels with Party Compliance Questionnaires and, where required by country cover position, sustainable lending forms. Those distribution facts do not change the legal form of support, but they do change how desks see documentation packages at origination.
How desks use the ECA product map
For credit papers, the map is a classification tool. Name the form of official support (pure cover, direct lending, interest support, or combination). Name the obligor path (buyer credit, supplier credit, working capital, bond, untied, investment PRI). Name the tenor band (short-term versus Arrangement medium and long-term). Name the cover quality (comprehensive versus political-only; percentage of cover). Name the Arrangement or Sector Understanding overlay where Participants are involved. Name the national eligibility overlays that still have to clear. Name whether the facility is Arrangement-scoped MLT export credit or an adjacent product that only shares an agency brand.
The map does not replace pricing models, capital treatment under Basel III or CRR credit-risk mitigation analysis, or sanctions and AML filters. It prevents category errors: treating EXIM multi-buyer insurance as Arrangement buyer credit; treating MIGA breach-of-contract cover as ECA comprehensive cover; treating working-capital guarantees as MLT export credit; or treating untied programmes as tied content-compliant export credit without reading the mandate. A cross-agency reading of Arrangement ceilings sits in the OECD Arrangement desk primer.