EKN has said it is open to “having a discussion” over a Swedish version of the flexible ‘shopping line’ product that is gaining traction among European export credit agencies (ECAs).
A shopping line typically grants an overseas buyer cover for a credit facility that is, at least in part, used to buy goods from a range of suppliers in the country of the ECA.
“Some version of shopping line could be feasible provided it still will contain Swedish exports, so yes such an alternative will be discussed,” EKN’s head of large corporates Lena Bertilsson told GTR in an interview.
Chief executive Åke Nordlander added: “It still needs to be linked to Swedish interest and exports and supporting our companies in Sweden. I think it’s more making our instruments more efficient and more adoptable… I’m not sure we would call it a shopping line.”
Austria’s export credit agency OeKB pioneered the shopping line product, which usually comes with fewer conditions and is quicker to get than other forms of ECA support that are closely linked to specific export or sale contracts.
In addition to OeKB, bpifrance and Germany’s Euler Hermes have also introduced the offering. Earlier this month Santander announced what it said was the first facility granted under Euler Hermes’ shopping line, for Dutch construction company Ballast Nedam.
Volvo Construction Equipment, part of the Volvo conglomerate that is one of Sweden’s largest companies, has a “gentlemen’s agreement” for a shopping line with Belgian ECA Credendo, a company official told the GTR Nordics event last month.
Some European countries such as Italy have gone further by offering so-called untied cover, meaning beneficiaries of the cover are not obliged to buy a specified amount of exports from the ECA’s home market.
But Nordlander said EKN “is not looking into untied”.
Nordlander took over as head of EKN in September this year, following the nine-year run of Anna-Karin Jatko. He was previously head of budget at the Swedish finance ministry, although he has been an EKN board member since 2015.
Volume up, deals down
EKN has reported record volumes in recent years, buoyed by big-ticket deals in defence on the back of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Last year EKN’s guarantee volume was SEK103.6bn (€9.4bn), with a figure in the same ballpark expected for 2025, according to Nordlander.
While outstanding guarantees for defence remain broadly in line with the volume prior to the war in Ukraine, a spokesperson said there has been significant growth in the offers EKN has made in the sector, suggesting a strong pipeline of deals.
But the overall value of the agency’s guarantees masks another stark dynamic: while volumes have risen, the number of transactions has fallen.
Since 2019, the number of deals conducted by EKN has shrunk every year, the agency’s annual reports showed, falling from 2,135 in 2019 to 1,412 in 2024.
Nordlander said “it’s something that we have on our radar, trying to understand why” transactions are falling. He said the agency doesn’t “have fewer customers, but our customers have – at least in relation to us – been doing fewer deals”.
Bertilsson added: “We are looking at the reasons why the number of transactions is going down and we don’t fool ourselves with the fact that the volumes are going up, as it doesn’t mean that all our companies are growing.”
The share of transactions considered to be for SMEs has also ebbed in recent years. Last year 378 deals involved small or medium-sized firms, compared to 725 in 2019. Nordlander said that smaller firms tend to be more affected by lower economic growth and higher interest rates.
The agency also said it will look at how it can find more “efficiencies” by removing some of the bureaucracy usually required when corporate borrowers want to benefit from EKN cover.
Users of export finance have long argued that environmental and social assessment rules required by ECAs take too much time and are sometimes disproportionate to the modest impact of a project.
Nordlander said “strong environmental and social standards are essential when we do business in these complex areas” and noted EKN follows International Finance Corporation standards.
But he said the agency “recognise[s] that there are concerns about timing, cost and flexibility, and we always try to do better”, and that a 2024 survey of lenders carried out by the agency also highlighted the issue. He added that “early dialogue” on due diligence is crucial, especially with arranging banks.
Bertilsson said: “There is, of course, room for some efficiencies, because sometimes there’s a tendency that it takes some time to go through these kinds of processes. So we will address this.”
But she noted that “there are quite a lot of” environmental and social questions that have to be addressed in ECA deals, especially for larger projects in regions such as Africa.
