ASHRA Gives You More Confidence and Improves Your Conditions for Export Financing

An approval from ASHRA of your insurance application offers you more confidence for facilitating your transactions in the export market, and may even give you the best chances for getting finance!

In many markets worldwide companies (and governments) are buying from Israel - these are your customers – and they are subject to political and commercial risks and instability. Commercial risks occur, for example, when the client is suddenly unable to pay (becomes insolvent). Concerns about political risks can turn implementation of foreign trade transactions to impossible. ASHRA covers many of the political and commercial risks that may accompany international trades and / or investments in a foreign country.

ASHRA is a governmental foreign trade risks insurance company (medium and long term credit and investments as well) and is the only company in its field in Israel that is able to handle and insure risks that banks and other financial institutions are unable to cope with. With ASHRA's policy you and your bank can feel safe and confident that you will get your money, even if your customer can not pay or if the political situation in his country makes it difficult to facilitate the transaction, and even makes it impossible.
If something goes wrong - we will take care of the payment.

Moreover, nowadays you need more than just a good product to succeed in the export markets. As important is the ability to secure your transaction with competitive financing terms and to offer long and comfortable credit terms for your client.
However, international trade risks are often so high that banks refuse to finance export transactions without suitable guarantees. We here at ASHRA will provide you such kind of comfort.
When ASHRA insures your transactions, you have the best assurance - the backup of the State of Israel. This fact drastically improves your company's chances to give its customers the required funding. This way you will be able to give your company a competitive advantage over other suppliers!

ASHRA covers you in cases which:

• Your buyer, or his bank, is unable to pay for the product (or the loan).
• The product cannot be delivered as a result, for example, of political violence or import sanctions.
• Your buyer requires a guarantee contract and then calls it unfairly (in contrary to the terms of the commercial agreement).
• The buyer (governmental) cancels the contract.
• The investment made by your company in a foreign country suffers from a loss resulting from a political event, such as: nationalization, political unrest, moratorium, restrictions on exchange of foreign currency, or an armed conflict.

ASHRA also covers you in cases which:

• You want to offer credit to your buyer.
• Your buyer needs financing.
• You want to invest in or to start a business abroad.

Solutions
Together we will find a solution fitting your needs. You can use one or more of the following products we are offering you:

Supplier's credit policy
Allows you to offer medium\long-term credit to your buyers abroad. This policy ensures your money if the buyer is unable to pay as agreed.
Supplier's credit insurance is suitable for transactions in which the exporter delivers goods or provides services, and the buyer pays the proceeds in periodic payments, according to the agreed credit period.

Buyer's credit policy
Allows your buyer to get a loan from a bank for the purpose of facilitating the transaction and paying its obligation. This policy provides the bank with the necessary security in order to provide a loan to the buyer, so that you can receive your payment immediately after the delivery of goods, while later on the buyer should pay the loan to the bank, according to its terms.
With the buyer's credit policy you can get the full value of your export, during or upon completion of the deliveries. That is, a credit transaction becomes a cash deal for you!

Credit line policy – a loan agreement
Similar to the buyer's credit policy, this method will take off the burden of financing from you, the exporter. The obligator is the bank abroad and not the buyer (unlike in the Buyer's credit policy). The bank financing the transaction provides a loan to the bank abroad, which in turn provides a loan to the buyer. ASHRA provides a guarantee to the financing bank and covers the risk that the bank abroad will not honor its commitment to repay the loan to the financing bank.
The creation of inter bank credit lines allows to address small and large-scale export transactions and shorten the process of the implementation.

Unfair call of guarantee
Insures you against losses in the event that your buyer (governmental) unfairly calls a guarantee provided to him by you as a security for a tender, and\ or for a down payment and\ or for a delivery.

Letters of Credit (L\C) policy
Allows you to arrange bank financing for Letters of Credit in developing markets, where your bank usually refuses to provide financing against L\C's because of fear of risks. This policy insures your bank against the risk of non-payment.
In this policy the insured entity is the bank, which maintains the L\C opened in your favor, the exporter.

Forfeiting of promissory notes policy
Allows an exporter holding promissory notes (received from the buyer to secure payments for the goods supplied) to get funding by discounting these promissory notes at a bank, and thus turning a credit transaction in notes into a cash transaction!
This policy covers the risk of non-payment of the promissory note, according to the terms of the policy. In this case, the insured entity is the bank, which discounts the promissory notes for you, the exporter.

Pre-Shipment policy
Insures you against losses if you are unable to provide a specific order to your buyer for breach of contract by a governmental buyer, in case of political causes such as political violence or prohibitions and restrictions on imports imposed by state authorities.

Investment Insurance Policy
Allows you, as an investor, to set up production facilities or to purchase a property abroad while reducing political risks in the investment country. The investment insurance policy insures you against losses in cases you operate in a country characterized by political instability, such as the danger of war (external armed conflict or internal political violence), nationalization or prohibiting drawing foreign currency out of the investment country.

When there is a need for financing, companies tend to choose one of the following options:

Buyer's credit policy
Credit line policy
Letters of Credit (L\C) policy
Forfeiting  of promissory notes policy
Investment Insurance Policy (for lenders): Such policy covers a bank against political risks in developing countries and can often be the last piece of the puzzle missing for getting a loan from your bank.