Compagnie française d'assurance pour le commerce extérieur

The Compagnie Française d'Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur (COFACE) was founded in 1946 as the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

export credit agency

Export Credit Agencies

An export credit agency or Investment Insurance Agency, is a private or quasi-governmental institution that act as an intermediary between national governments and exporters to issue export financing...

. It was subsequently privatized by the government and continued as a commercial enterprise. Currently, COFACE is owned by the bank group Natixis

Natixis

Natixis is a French corporate and investment bank created in November 2006 from the merger of the asset management and investment banking operations of Natexis Banque Populaire and IXIS ....

.

Coface provides guarantees or insurance

Insurance

In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...

on accounts receivable

Accounts receivable

Accounts receivable also known as Debtors, is money owed to a business by its clients and shown on its Balance Sheet as an asset...

arising from the sales of commercial goods and services on credit terms of 30-day and 60-day time scales especially for export

Export

The term export is derived from the conceptual meaning as to ship the goods and services out of the port of a country. The seller of such goods and services is referred to as an "exporter" who is based in the country of export whereas the overseas based buyer is referred to as an "importer"...

companies (as an alternative to making the foreign purchaser obtain a letter of credit

Letter of credit

A standard, commercial letter of credit is a document issued mostly by a financial institution, used primarily in trade finance, which usually provides an irrevocable payment undertaking....

), sometimes on longer time scales; it manages state

Sovereign state

A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...

guarantees for exports by French corporation

Corporation

A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...

s; and also provides some other international support for exporters.

Coface is a world leader in trade-credit information and protection (Trade Credit Insurance

Trade Credit Insurance

Trade credit insurance, business credit insurance, export credit insurance, or credit insurance is an insurance policy and a risk management product offered by private insurance companies and governmental export credit agencies to business entities wishing to protect their balance sheet asset,...

), serving 160,000 clients in 93 countries. The company has been expanding into the related fields of trade finance, including factoring

Factoring (finance)

Factoring is a financial transaction whereby a business job sells its accounts receivable to a third party at a discount...

, and accounts receivable management.

Furthermore, together with creditreform la Coface launch an International identifier

International identifier

An international identifier is a number of different size which comes above or beside the national identification number and helps to identify a company over several countries in the world....

EasyNumber

EasyNumber is a Business information identifier provided by the Easynumber Company, a Joint Venture between the Companies Creditreform and Coface...

which gives to every single Business Unit of an economic actor. This service is manage by a joint venture EasyNumber Company SA.

In the UK and Ireland, Coface UK provides:

Accounts Receivable Insurance (Trade Credit Insurance)
Single Risk and Political Risk Protection
International Business Information
Commercial Collection Services
Country Risk Information
Receivables Finance
Performance Bonds & Duty Deferment Guarantees (Surety
Surety
A surety or guarantee, in finance, is a promise by one party to assume responsibility for the debt obligation of a borrower if that borrower defaults...

)

In North America, Coface North America provides:

Accounts Receivable Insurance (Trade Credit Insurance)
Single Risk and Political Risk Protection
Receivables Finance
International Business Information
Commercial Collection Services
Kompass Business to Business Search Engine
Country Risk Information

In Australia, Coface Services Australia provides:

Company Information
Receivables Management
Receivables Protection (Trade Credit Insurance)
Receivables financing

Country risks rating

Coface assigns a rating to each of the 150 countries it monitors; this rating reflects the average risk of short-term non-payment for companies in this country. Seven families are used:

A1 : Steady political and economic environment, good payment record of companies, very weak default probability
A2 : Political and economic environment or payment record of companies not as good as A1, default probability being still weak
A3 : Payment record usually lower than A1 and A2, likely to be modified by adverse political or economic circumstances, probability of a payment default being still low
A4 : Patchy payment record, likely to be modified by a deteriorating political and economic environment, probability of a default being still acceptable
B : Unsteady political and economic environment, usually poor payment record
C : Very unsteady political and economic environment, frequently bad payment record
D : High risk profile of the economic and political environment, very bad payment record.

Equivalent in the world

France : Euler Hermes
Euler Hermes
Euler Hermes is a French credit insurance company majority-owned by Allianz France which is in turn owned by Germany's Allianz SE.It claims to have 36% of the total credit insurance market. Euler Hermes is the result of the acquisition of Allianz's Hermes by AGF's Euler in 2002...
United Kingdom : ECGD
United States of America : Eximbank

External links

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