A series of “mega-transactions” in the transport, energy and defence sectors has pushed medium and long-term (MLT) cross-border credit cover to “new highs”, rising 17.5% year on year.
According to the Berne Union’s State of the Industry Report 2025, out this week, “goliath cruise ship transactions” and several large energy transition projects drove MLT business up from US$197bn in 2024 to US$231bn in 2025.
These large projects, which included a “colossal” offshore windfarm in the Baltics and a nuclear power plant expansion in the UK, are signs that new MLT business is becoming more concentrated in a small number of transactions, the report said.
Made up of 88 members, including export credit agencies (ECAs), private credit and political risk insurers and multilateral agencies, the Berne Union represents the global export credit and investment insurance industry.
Its latest report looks at FY 2025 data from Berne Union members worldwide, including short-term (ST) business – classed as cover for a loan supporting cross-border trade with a credit period of less than 360 days – and MLT business, which covers longer-dated loans.
Last year was the first time new MLT business in developed markets exceeded that in developing economies, it said.
“The continued expansion of private MLT credit deployment is the defining feature of the market structure in 2025,” the report said, with private insurers deploying US$57bn in new commitments – an increase of 27.7% compared to 2024.
“Much of the expansion in 2025 reflects the use of private insurer capacity as capital relief for banks lending into the buildout of data centres, particularly in the United States and East APAC, alongside continued support for energy assets.”
ECAs committed US$165.9bn to new schemes in 2025, continuing to support defence procurement, cruise ship manufacturing and large-scale energy MLT projects.
This week, for instance, UK Export Finance launched a £50bn Defence Export Fund as part of the UK government’s efforts to increase defence spending.
The report noted that untied ECA products are still gaining popularity, with exposure under MLT general products – which include untied programmes – sitting at just over double 2019 levels.
Untied financing is not linked – or tied – to national exports but instead offers working capital support or other forms of financing to companies or projects, and has been a burgeoning form of support for several years.
Overall, Poland was the largest market for defence-related ECA cover, while Serbia, Ukraine and Indonesia were also major procurers of defence imports.
Aside from cover for cruise vessel financing from European ECAs and commercial shipbuilding supported by Asian ECAs, commitments related to Kazakhstan’s national railway company KTZ were a key driver of rolling stock activity, the Berne Union said.
Renewable energy was another major source of new MLT commitments, totalling US$17.5bn and marking a 38.2% increase compared to 2024.
A Berne Union report from December last year found that growth in the renewable energy sector had boosted new export credit and investment risk business.
Yuichiro Akita, president of the Berne Union, said: “Collaboration across ECAs, multilaterals, and private institutions is already deepening, with new approaches to risk-sharing and capital mobilisation emerging.
“These developments are expanding the role of ECAs as catalysts for broader capital mobilisation.”
Claims surge
Political risk claims topped US$11bn for the first time in 2025, though the Berne Union stressed this was driven by a few major events.
The outlier events included “a spike in Zambian MLT claims, ongoing sanction-related claims to Russian entities and a significant expropriation claim”.
Yet new PRI cover fell by 18.4%, the report found, which revealed an ongoing decline in demand for the product thanks to “a combination of lower amounts of cover from high-volume ECAs and sparse demand from other ECAs”, it said.
The report highlighted record levels of trade activity supported overall by Berne Union members, totalling US$3.7tn, up from US$3.3tn the year before.
The majority of this – US$3.3tn – came from ST business, which rose 11.6% year on year and is US$1.2tn higher than in 2019.
The biggest group for ST business was product manufacturing, with insured trade for the sector growing by almost 10% to US$534.8bn, followed by the electronics sector, which posted a 14% increase to US$386.7bn.
Energy commodities “increased modestly” during 2025 to US$64.9bn, representing an increase of almost 2% year on year.
The report also flagged that AI was the “most popular innovation” in terms of product updates. “Members are increasingly making use of large language models to help with a range of tasks including document preparation, information retrieval and translation,” it said.
