UK-based SME financing provider Bibby Financial Services (BFS) says it has established a £300mn pandemic recovery fund for new and existing customers as coronavirus lockdown restrictions in the UK begin to ease.
The company says the fund will target businesses trading on credit terms who are seeking funding to grow as the economy reopens. SMEs will be able to access the funds through BFS invoice finance products such as trade and export finance variants, factoring, invoice discounting and construction finance.
It says it expects most of the fund to be directed toward SMEs in the manufacturing, services, construction, transport and recruitment sectors.
Unsustainable corporate and government debt racked up during the coronavirus pandemic is emerging as a major credit risk to the global economy and trade.
Marsh, one of the world’s biggest insurance brokers, says its annual political risk map has tracked the largest ever increases in economic risk for 2021, which is also characterised by inequality between rich and poor nations and advancing trade nationalism.
“Strains on public financing in emerging markets will result from increases in sovereign indebtedness and may create unfavourable conditions for domestic and foreign-owned businesses,” the broker says.
“Increased sovereign risk can ultimately lead to government defaults, currency crises or even an inability to convert local currency into hard currency, and to transfer such currency out of the country,” Megan Marshall, global sales leader of Marsh’s credit specialties practice, tells
Atradius to host a series of virtual events on the future of global trade
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webcasts will feature thought leaders from business and academia who will address the uncertainty facing the international trade environment as it emerges from the Covid-19 economic crisis.
AMSTERDAM, Jan. 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ As the world strives to turn the page on the Covid-19 crisis, many businesses are facing new challenges arising from the uncertain and potentially long-term impacts of the pandemic on global supply chains. On top of this, businesses are having to deal with the continuous renegotiation of trade tariffs, the rebalancing of world trade relationships, and a growing trend towards trade digitalisation and de-globalisation.