Press release

Coface’s position in India

Wed, 18 Oct 2006

Coface announces today that it is reinforcing its presence in India with the launch of 3 new lines of business:

Solvency information on Indian companies:

Coface needs first class information on Indian companies for its credit insurance and factoring business worldwide. It has decided to reinforce its information center in Bangalore and to make it available to interested Indian banks and companies.

Multinational credit insurance cover for multinational Indian companies:

More and more Indian multinationals need to cover credit risk on the operations of their subsidiaries world-wide. Coface is offering its network to them. To meet its clients’ needs throughout the world, Coface has established subsidiaries and branch offices in 60 countries and 191 cities.

This network has no equivalent in the world. Credit insurance cover will be delivered in each country by Coface companies and in India by Coface partners. Coface has concluded partnership agreements with two general private insurers ICICI Lombard General Insurance (“ICICI Lombard”) and ITGI (“IFFCO-Tokio General Insurance”), which are major players in the Indian market.

Political risk cover for banks and companies:

More and more Indian companies sell abroad, sometimes in difficult countries. Coface is one of the first players in political risk cover. Cover will be extended through the same features as for multinational cover.

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Coface’s mission is to facilitate global business-to-business trade by offering companies the means to manage with precision the credit routinely agreed (of 30 days, 60 days or sometimes more) in the course of commercial relations with client-companies and suppliers in home and foreign markets. This credit is commonly known as a company’s “trade receivables”.

Coface has been active in India since 2001 and created a subsidiary, Coface India Credit Management Services (“Coface India”), which has become a leading player in credit management services, marketing and solvency information. Coface India has established five offices throughout the country: Mumbai (head office), Hyderabad, New Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore.

Jérôme Cazes, CEO of Coface, is committed to this growing market and states that, “Our development in India allows us to offer credit management services of international standards to our clients and to the increasing number of Indian multinational companies. We will continue to develop in India and intend to introduce in 2007 debt collection and invoice management services”

Press contact:

Coface India
Samuel Jesuratnam
Tel: +91 22 26122535
Email: samuel_jesuratnam@coface.com

Founded in 1946, Coface, rated AA by Fitch, AA- by Standard & Poor’s and Aa3 by Moody’s, is a subsidiary of Natexis Banques Populaires and Groupe Banque Populaire whose share capital (Tier 1) was 14.63 billion euros at end 2005. Coface’s mission is to facilitate global business-to-business trade by offering its clients four product lines to fully or partly outsource trade relationship management and to finance and protect their receivables: credit insurance, company information and ratings, receivables management and factoring. Coface also offers three other business lines: guarantee insurance, receivables management training, and, in France, management of government export guarantees. Coface operates a quality local service for its 85,000 clients thanks to its 4,850 staff in 60 countries where Coface has a direct presence. This local service also covers in 93 countries via partners in the CreditAlliance worldwide network, organised around an integrated credit risk management tool, the Common Risk System.

COFACE VIETNAM SERVICES

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