Unlike covered bonds, the latter are backed by packages or specific groups of foreign trade financing operations. These new bonds may contribute to reducing exporting firms’ financial costs and to increasing the total volume of financing. Along with providing financing, banks also extend coverage for export risks, relating for instance to the recipient country’s economic or political situation, so-called “country risk”; the risk that products may be damaged in transit or withheld at borders; collection difficulties in the event of non-payment, associated with different jurisdictional frameworks; and greater uncertainty in the relationship between the supplier and acquiring company. Banks have used various instruments to extend guarantees on international trade flows. The classic instrument is, of course, the documentary credit. The importer’s bank guarantees the exporter’s bank that payment will be made once it has been confirmed, through presentation of the pertinent documentation, that the transaction has been correctly completed. In this way, exporters notably reduce their risks. Naturally, the demand for coverage of credit risk is higher for trade flows with countries with which there are fewer historical ties and with those trade partners for which greater risk is perceived. Accordingly, this may prove important in the opening-up of new markets and in flows to emerging economies. As regards the medium and long term, the nature and functioning of transactions differ from those for short-term transactions. The financial services provided by banks for longer-dated terms are, essentially, financing and the extension of guarantees and bonds needed to participate in international tender procedures.
Such coverage is the norm for exports towards countries with appreciable risk and in transactions which, frequently, have the sovereign guarantee of the importing country. CESCE also provides underwriting on the State’s behalf for the political risks associated with exports (the main such risk being default by the sovereign or by the institutions backed by the sovereign), except in operations at less than two years in EU and OECD countries, where it is considered that there is a sufficiently developed private underwriting market; it also extends guarantees and bonds for participating in international tender procedures and projects. From 1998 to 2007 there was a strong expansion in international banking activity in financing for Spanish companies’ international activity. Banks took on a relevant role in the financing of trade flows to emerging countries and in the opening-up of new markets. Against the backdrop of this boom, the use of instruments offered by export credit agencies for exports became less necessary and less frequent. The international financial crisis The financial instability as from mid-2007 and the outbreak of the crisis in autumn 2008 radically altered this financial landscape, giving way to an across-the-board decline in financing by international banks. The contraction in credit had a particularly severe effect on international trade, which fell by between 20% and 30% in the main economies. The central banks responded to this situation through coordinated action that stabilised bank financing conditions.