Banca Popolare di Sondrio has partnered with Italian export credit agency (ECA) Sace to help corporates recover commercial credit abroad and in Italy.

The agreement targets small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in particular, enabling them to access Sace’s credit recovery and restructuring services and expertise and large network of legal correspondents abroad and at home. They will receive support in handling the different phases of judicial and extrajudicial activity for credit recovery, negotiating agreements and restructuring of corporates’ and bankers’ financial exposure, repossession and remarketing of the supply under guarantee abroad.

The companies will have access to a specific website to keep updated and manage their credit situation and also receive commercial information on specific counterparties, foreign markets and sectors.

The need for such services come from the worsening of credit conditions and solvency in a number of emerging markets exposed to the slowdown in the commodity prices, currency volatility and increase in political risk. Sace’s Global Risk Map, published in January 2016, identifies developing countries such as Mongolia, Ghana, Zambia, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil in particular as being at risk of default.