Exporters treat the credit decision as a black box. It isn’t, and most of it can be run before you submit anything. Once an exporter understands how buyer credit works (ATRAFIN pays you in full on shipment, your overseas customer repays us over five to seven years) and that the buyer funds the first 15% in cash, the next question is always the same.
Will my buyer actually qualify?
It decides whether a deal is real. And unlike much of export finance, the answer isn’t discretionary. EXIM’s medium-term credit standards are published, applied consistently, and largely testable from documents your buyer already has.
Start with the country, not the buyer
Before anyone opens a financial statement, EXIM’s Country Limitation Schedule determines whether cover is available at all: country by country, split between public and private sector obligors, and split by tenor. In global trade finance, country risk is priced before company risk. A buyer with immaculate numbers in a country EXIM is closed to is not a transaction. Run this check first; it takes five minutes.
Track record, then the numbers
Medium-term emerging market trade finance rewards operating history. As a rule the buyer needs around three years in the same line of business, with three years of financial statements behind it. Newly formed companies and single-purpose vehicles are a longer conversation — which is where small business exporters selling to a first-time importer are most often caught out.
From there, four tests:
- Profitability: is the business earning, in the most recent year and across the period reviewed?
- Leverage: how much debt already sits against the balance sheet relative to net worth?
- Liquidity: is there working capital to keep trading while the new asset is paid down?
- Debt service coverage: does cashflow service the new facility alongside existing obligations, with headroom?
Note the last one. Coverage is tested on the whole company, not on the equipment in isolation. Exporters are regularly surprised when a highly profitable buyer fails on leverage, or when a modest one clears because its existing debt has largely amortised.
Tenor, security and character
Three structural tests sit alongside the financials. The repayment profile has to be earned by equipment still productive across it, so terms are set against useful life. That is why capital goods financing fits this structure and spares and consumables don’t.
The loan is also secured: a first-priority lien over the financed equipment is standard, with corporate or personal guarantees where the balance sheet needs support. And integrity due diligence runs in parallel, covering arrears with the U.S. government, debarment, sanctions and adverse credit. That last one isn’t a sliding scale. It passes, or the transaction stops.
Why this belongs in your sales process
None of this requires a formal application. An exporter who knows their buyer’s country, trading history and last three years of accounts can get a credible read in days, which is why the earlier a deal reaches us, the more useful we are.
It also changes what a “no” means. Buyers rarely fail on everything; they fail on one item. Lift the down payment, shorten the tenor, add a guarantee, restructure the security, and the same transaction clears. Mitigating risk on the lender’s side is usually what unlocks the deal on yours.
Bottom Line
“Will my buyer qualify?” is a short list of published tests, most of which you can run yourself before you pick up the phone. Knowing that list is a competitive advantage in international trade — it tells you which deals to chase hard, which to restructure, and which to drop before you’ve spent six months on them. That isn’t administration. It’s how business growth and global expansion get planned.
ATRAFIN acts as the financing arm for U.S. manufacturers and capital goods exporters, structuring EXIM-backed buyer credit, pre-shipment finance and working capital solutions into emerging markets. If you have a buyer in front of you and want a read on whether they would qualify, get in touch.