Trade finance magazine awards Coface `Best Export Credit Agency`

Johannesburg, 14 Jul 2006

Coface, the world`s second largest credit insurer, has won Trade Finance Magazine`s 2006 Award for excellence in the category of `Best Export Credit Agency`. In previous years the award has been won by Hermes and US ExIm. The prize will be awarded at the annual awards dinner held in London on 29 June.

"In South Africa, Coface has placed a major focus on the export market. "We now have available to South African exporters a database of over 50-million companies representing over 90 percent of world trade," says Coface MD Garth de Klerk.

"This enables local companies to receive credit insurance on companies across the world and trade with almost any country. The information covers credit risk in specific countries and markets based on Coface`s international research."

The Coface Group

Founded in 1946, Coface, rated AA by Fitch and Aa3 by Moody`s, is a subsidiary of Natexis Banques Populaires and Groupe Banque Populaire whose share capital (Tier 1) was 14.63 billion euros end 2005. Coface`s mission is to facilitate global business-to-business trade by offering its clients four product lines to fully or partly outsource trade relationship management and to finance and protect their receivables: credit insurance, company information and ratings, receivables management and factoring. Coface also offers three other business lines: guarantee insurance, receivables management training, and, in France, management of government export guarantees. Coface operates a quality local service for its 85,000 clients thanks to its 4,850 staff in 58 countries where Coface has a direct presence. This local service also covers in 93 countries via partners in the CreditAlliance worldwide network, organised around an integrated credit risk management tool, the Common Risk System.

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