Markel International is seeking regulatory approval to offer trade credit cover to clients within the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).

The specialist insurer has applied to the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) to set up a company located in the Lloyd’s offices in the DIFC.

Commenting on the progress of the application, director of international development at Markel, Simon Wilson, says that it depends how long the Dubai regulators take to approve it. “We hope to be in a position to be trading by the end of this year,” he adds.

Managing director of Markel’s trade credit division, Ewa Rose, has witnessed increasing business opportunities in the Middle East for the firm’s trade credit insurance product. “We launched it in London in 2010 and have since introduced the product in Singapore, Munich and New York, but the Middle East is still a missing part of the jigsaw,” she says.

The development in Dubai follows the expansion of Markel’s trade credit division in New York in July, and the insurer aims to offer other business lines to clients from the emirate should the application be successful.