UKEF’s Carl Williamson outlines how record funding, digital tools, and risk management are helping UK exporters grow globally amid geopolitical uncertainty.

The World Bank Group’s private sector arm, IFC, has completed its first global securitisation of emerging market loans, a $510 million collateralised loan obligation (CLO) listed in London.

At the International Chamber of Commerce’s headquarters, Trade Treasury Payments (TTP) sat down with John Denton to discuss the health of the World Trade Organization, the ICC’s future role in multilateral decision-making, export finance for Ukraine’s rebuild, and the plumbing that holds climate finance back.

TTP editor Deepesh Patel spoke to Benjamin Mugisha, Chief Underwriting Officer of ATIDI – African Trade & Investment Development Insurance, who shared how ATIDI has evolved, from issuing standalone guarantees to building portfolio approaches with financial institutions.

Official export credit agencies (ECAs) have been formally recognised by the United Nations as key actors in mobilising private capital to advance the Sustainable Development Goals, following their inclusion in the outcome document of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4), known as the Compromiso de Sevilla.

UK export credit agency UK Export Finance (UKEF) has unveiled a £13 billion expansion of its Direct Lending Facility, reinforcing the agency’s role in delivering the government’s new Industrial Strategy and supporting British exports across priority sectors.

In an interview with Trade Treasury Payments (TTP), Yuichiro Akita, President of the Berne Union, discussed how ECAs must adapt strategically to this new environment. Key priorities include supporting climate and clean-tech projects even in high-risk markets, shoring up supply chain resilience amid geopolitical fragmentation, deepening collaboration with development finance institutions (DFIs) through blended finance, innovating in underwriting and risk management post-pandemic, and recalibrating risk appetite to enable critical projects. 

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Trade has become well-established and recognised among practitioners and policymakers as an effective way to support and advance international development and poverty reduction. Multilateral institutions, including multilateral development banks (MDBs), have embraced this perspective, and most leading MDBs today put significant priority on the nexus between trade and development.