Q&A with Export Finance Australia Managing Director and CEO, Swati Dave
Q1: For anyone who is not familiar, can you please explain what an export credit agency does?
Most advanced countries worldwide have government owned export credit agencies, with a role to support and enable export trade for their country. Generally, these agencies provide various financing solutions to help businesses grow exports. The types of support provided depends on the mandate from the government and can include providing loans, insurance, guarantees and bonds.
As the Australian Government’s export credit agency, we are an integral part of Australia’s international trade focus, supporting businesses, jobs and the community. We play a critical role for our customers and partners by using our commercial financing capability to finance viable exporters when they cannot get financing from the banking market.
We work closely with banks, other financial institutions and partners such as Austrade to support exporters on their growth journey. By doing so, we seek to encourage and catalyse private market financing for exporters.
Q2: You have just had a rebrand. Can you tell us a bit about why you changed name and logo and what this means for the organisation?
For over 60 years, we’ve had the privilege of providing export financing to help small, medium and large Australian businesses grow internationally in new and emerging markets.
Our rebranding was part of a broader suite of changes to make our organisation more impactful for Australia. We now have a new infrastructure financing mandate for the Pacific and the broader region, as well as an additional $1 billion in callable capital, which we can use across our business. These changes enhance our capacity to support more exporters and to finance much needed infrastructure in the region.
Our new name, Export Finance Australia, better explains our role and will make it easier for exporters, project sponsors and partners to find us. It also connects us to the strong brand equity of Australia both domestically and internationally.
Q3: So, with these new powers, do you see Export Finance Australia heading in a different direction than it has been up until now?
Our purpose in financing exporters remains the same, however, we can now also focus on financing sustainable infrastructure in the region. Well planned infrastructure is critically important for economies to grow and prosper and to provide quality of life for its citizens.
Our ability to provide commercial financing for infrastructure is important to meet the significant infrastructure needs of the region and provides an alternative to the limited sovereign debt financing capability in the Pacific and Indo-Pacific.
Our increase in callable capital means we can provide greater support to exporting businesses as they build and grow their businesses in new and emerging markets.
Our role in financing Australian businesses into new markets is important for both Australia and the destination country. The benefits to Australian businesses include the ability to tap into new markets, diversification, gaining access to new resources and skills and contributing to higher growth.
For the destination countries, there is value from the introduction of new products, services, technologies and standards. It also helps the recipient country strengthen its links to the global economy.
Q4: What do you think are the key benefits of these new powers? What does this mean for businesses going into Asia?
Australia is in a unique position by virtue of its geographic position and its strong people-to-people links with Asia. Emerging Asia continues to play a key role in the global economy. We are seeing growing consumption by Asia’s middle class, improved market access through free trade agreements and a continued move by consumers to purchase goods and services online.
We can help Australian businesses with financing to increase their presence and engagement in Asia and capitalise on growth opportunities there. This includes Australian businesses looking to sell products and services into Asian markets or businesses looking to build their presence or establish operations in Asia.
Q5: So how would a business go about securing support from Export Finance Australia? What do they have to do?
Our new name will hopefully make it easier for businesses to find us. We can be contacted by phone or through our website at exportfinance.gov.au.
We have a highly experienced and purpose driven team who will take time to understand a business and how we might be able to help. We have business development managers across the country who support small and medium businesses in a diverse range of industry sectors.
Our Corporate, Sovereign & Project Finance team works with larger corporations and foreign governments in financing large and complex transactions in emerging markets.
Q6: Just lastly, there has been considerable focus recently on the role that diversity and inclusion plays in a company and its success. What is Export Finance Australia doing to encourage diversity and inclusion in the workplace?
Driving diversity and inclusion is very important for us. We are working towards building an organisational culture that values different voices, backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. We actively seek to hire talented people with diverse backgrounds including people who are new to or returning to Australia.
We have good gender and cultural diversity, with around 50% of our people from non-English speaking backgrounds. Over 25% of our team have a flexible working arrangement in place. We expect this diversity of thought and approach to stretch and grow our people and enhance our ability to finance exporters in the various overseas markets we support.
For more information visit: https://www.exportfinance.gov.au
