ECA cover types taxonomy for bank desks

ECA cover types are the legal and economic forms through which an export credit agency supports export or investment risk: pure cover as guarantee or insurance, official financing support including direct credit and interest-rate support, combinations of those forms, and adjacent investment political risk insurance (PRI). This taxonomy maps those forms to desk glossary terms and national product labels. It sits beside the export credit agencies hub and the OECD Arrangement hub.

OECD Arrangement forms of official support and ECA cover types

The OECD Arrangement defines the primary taxonomy for officially supported medium and long-term export credits among Participants: pure cover as guarantee or insurance, official financing support through direct credit, refinancing or interest-rate support, and combinations of those forms, with an 85% maximum official-support ceiling on export contract value subject to local-cost rules.

Under Article 5 of the Arrangement text TAD/PG(2026)1, official support may be provided as export credit guarantee or insurance (pure cover); as official financing support through direct credit or financing, refinancing, or interest-rate support; or as any combination of those forms. The Arrangement applies to officially supported export credits with a repayment term of two years or more. It also applies to tied aid, and its procedures apply to trade-related untied aid. Official support shall not exceed 85% of the export contract value, including third-country supply but excluding local costs, subject to the Arrangement's local-cost rules. Minimum Premium Rates differentiate by product quality and by the percentage of political and commercial risk cover provided.

That Arrangement cut is institutional, not branding. National agencies then label products as buyer-credit guarantees, supplier-credit insurance, direct loans, CIRR support, bond cover, or working-capital guarantees. Desks should map the brand back to pure cover, official financing support, or a combination before pricing, capital, or syndication analysis proceeds.

CIRR belongs inside official financing support. Annex XII governs CIRR mechanics under the Arrangement: a CIRR is established for each Participant's currency where required data is available, the CIRR is composed of a base rate and a margin, CIRR rates are calculated monthly and take effect on the 15th day of each month, and CIRR base rates are computed using government bond yields. CIRR is therefore a minimum fixed-rate path for official financing support, not a pure-cover peril description.

Buyer credit, supplier credit, insurance and guarantees

The second taxonomy cut is who holds the funded credit risk under the export contract and the loan: buyer credit places the loan with the overseas buyer, supplier credit keeps credit with the exporter, and pure cover then takes either an insurance or a guarantee skin around that funded exposure within Arrangement percentage limits.

A buyer credit structure places the loan with the overseas buyer or a borrower for the buyer's account. UKEF's Buyer Credit Facility provides a guarantee to a bank making a loan to an overseas buyer so that capital goods, services and/or intangibles can be purchased.

UKEF states that the exporter receives payment as amounts fall due under the export contract while the borrower repays over a period of two years or longer, that the lending bank is protected against non-payment of principal and interest instalments due under the guaranteed loan for whatever reason within product terms, that the maximum loan amount 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. That facility is pure cover in Arrangement terms: a buyer credit guarantee around a commercial loan.

A supplier credit structure keeps credit with the exporter, often through deferred payment, 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 same Arrangement 85% maximum official support ceiling applies when the credit is Arrangement-scoped.

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. UKEF's Export Insurance Policy can insure exporters for up to 95% of potential losses under an export contract, with examples that include buyer insolvency, early contract termination before shipment, and political events that prevent completion.

Standalone EXIP eligibility includes inability to obtain private-market cover and at least 20% UK content by value including profit margin. US EXIM describes export credit insurance as an insurance policy for US exporters that protects foreign receivables from both commercial and political losses, and notes that insured foreign receivables are more likely to be included in a borrowing base. German federal export credit guarantees (Hermes Cover) are marketed as cover for economic and political risks and protection against payment defaults.

Percentage of cover is separate from the insurance-versus-guarantee skin. Arrangement notification fields distinguish percentage of cover for political (country) risk and for commercial (buyer) risk, and Minimum Premium Rates take percentage of cover and product quality into account.

Comprehensive cover, political risk and investment PRI

The third cut is peril scope: comprehensive export-credit cover responds to both commercial and political non-payment, political-only or commercial-only cover leaves the other family outside the instrument, and investment political-risk insurance sits in an adjacent column rather than inside Arrangement buyer-credit pure cover.

Comprehensive cover is export-credit insurance or guarantee protection that responds to both commercial and political causes of non-payment. EXIM's product framing for export credit insurance explicitly covers commercial and political non-payment risk. Hermes Cover materials likewise frame federal guarantees as cover for economic and political risks. Political-only cover leaves commercial default outside the instrument. Commercial-only cover excludes political perils. Desks should not treat national brand names as synonyms for comprehensiveness without reading the wording.

Political risk insurance for investments is an adjacent column, not Arrangement export-credit pure cover. MIGA's guarantee portfolio distinguishes political-risk guarantees, credit guarantees, and trade-finance guarantees. Political-risk guarantees protect investments against losses caused by government actions or political events, with product pages covering currency inconvertibility and transfer restriction, expropriation, and related perils. Credit-risk guarantees protect lenders from borrower default on loans or bonds. That investment and credit-guarantee stack is institutionally separate from classic ECA buyer-credit pure cover even when both appear in one project package.

Berne Union industry framing separates short-term trade credit, medium and long-term export credit, and investment insurance. That industry map aligns with the desk taxonomy.

CIRR, tied support and untied programmes

Pricing path and procurement linkage cut across product skins: CIRR is the Arrangement minimum fixed rate for official financing support, floating-rate pure cover remains Arrangement-scoped when tenor qualifies, and tied versus untied financing decides whether proceeds are procurement-linked to the supporting country or freely available under national mandate rules.

Official financing support may use a CIRR minimum fixed rate constructed under Annex XII, or may leave commercial floating-rate funding in place under pure cover alone. Interest-rate support or interest make-up can combine commercial bank funding with official rate support. Floating-rate covered lending is therefore not outside the Arrangement merely because it is not CIRR-priced; pure cover still sits under Arrangement financial-term and premium disciplines when tenor and export scope qualify.

Tied versus untied financing is a separate taxonomy axis. Arrangement export credits are official support for exports and are procurement-linked by design through national eligibility and content rules. Chapter III sets complementary policies for tied aid, stating that export-credit policies should be based on open competition and the free play of market forces, while tied-aid policies should provide external resources to countries, sectors or projects with little or no access to market financing and minimise trade distortion.

The Arrangement applies to tied aid and extends notification procedures to trade-related untied aid. National untied loan guarantee programmes finance overseas projects or buyers without a classic tied export contract from the supporting country, subject to national mandate rules. Desks keep untied products in a separate column because content, notification and developmental tests differ from tied export credit.

How to read national ECA product labels

National product pages should be translated into the taxonomy before they enter a credit paper: map each brand to pure cover or official financing support, to buyer or supplier credit, to insurance or guarantee skin, to comprehensive or political-only perils, and to tied or untied procurement linkage, then reconcile combinations and project packages against Arrangement Article 5.

A practical mapping for bank EF desks is:

• UKEF Buyer Credit Facility: pure cover; buyer credit; bank guarantee of loan principal and interest; Arrangement-aligned 85%/15% structure on the UKEF page.
• UKEF Export Insurance Policy: pure cover; insurance skin; typically supplier-credit or contract risk; up to 95% of potential losses; private-market and content filters on standalone policies.
• EXIM export credit insurance: pure cover; insurance skin; commercial and political non-payment on foreign receivables; borrowing-base interaction stated by EXIM.
• EXIM loan guarantee: pure cover or combination with financing features depending on the specific EXIM solution; Arrangement mapping requires the tenor and export scope of the commitment.
• Hermes Cover: pure cover branded as federal guarantees for economic and political payment defaults, including supplier-credit, manufacturing-risk, contract-bond and whole-turnover forms.
• MIGA political-risk and credit guarantees: investment PRI and credit-guarantee columns, not OECD Arrangement export-credit substitutes.

Combinations are common. An agency may guarantee a commercial loan while also providing interest-rate support, or may refinance a bank after disbursement. Arrangement Article 5 treats combinations as official support. Project-finance packages may place ECA pure cover beside commercial tranches and multilateral guarantees; cover ratios such as debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) remain bank tools beside Arrangement ceilings, as mapped in the project finance hub and the ECA product map guide.