About Us

Who are we?

We are Canada’s export credit agency. Our job is to support and develop Canada’s export trade by helping Canadian companies respond to international business opportunities. We are a self-financing, Crown corporation that operates at arm's length from the Government.

What do we do?

We provide insurance and financial services, bonding products and small business solutions to Canadian exporters and investors and their international buyers. We also support Canadian direct investment abroad and investment into Canada. Much of our business is done in partnership with other financial institutions and through collaboration with the Government of Canada.

How we operate

Unlike most export credit agencies that rely on governmental annual appropriations, we are financially self-sufficient and operate much like a commercial institution. We collect interest on our loans and premiums on our insurance products. We also have a treasury department that sells bonds and raises money in global capital markets.

We are committed to the principles of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Our rigorous due diligence requirements ensure that all projects and transactions we support are financially, environmentally and socially responsible. We believe that good business — adopting and embracing these principles while we facilitate trade for Canadian investors and exporters — is good for business. 

Benefits to Canada

Since we were founded in 1944, we have facilitated more than $1.3 trillion in exports and foreign investment by Canadian companies. This is important because Canada’s economy relies on trade; one in three jobs depends on exports. Given our small domestic market, Canadian businesses have to think globally to compete and grow.

In 2016 we helped more than 7,150 Canadian companies do business in over 200 countries. The majority of these companies were small business, and more than 30 per cent of this business was conducted in fast-growing emerging markets. Using our financial products and services, our customers’ export sales and investments totalled almost $99 billion. We estimate that this helped generate $63.9 billion of Canada’s GDP, contributed more than 4 cents for every dollar earned and helped sustain 525,400 jobs.

Making the connections to create trade

Critical to Canada’s trade success is the ability for Canadian companies, particularly SMEs, to make a connection with international buyers. But many of these companies do not have the size or visibility to make that happen, particularly in emerging markets. One of EDC’s strategies is to help make these connections through match-making sessions with the Canadian Trade Commissioners’ Service, through our equity investments and by leveraging our financial relationships with foreign buyers to encourage them to procure from Canadian suppliers. This strategy is particularly geared toward helping Canadian small-and medium-sized business grow internationally.

Partnership preferred philosophy

When we work on a transaction, we prefer to do it in explicit partnership with the private sector. We let the private sector player set the terms and we add capacity and share the risk. This encourages the private sector to move into new areas, leaving us to move to new frontiers to create new trade for Canada.

We have also signed a protocol with the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), to ensure that Canadian companies looking to expand their business in global markets have access to the services and financial capacity that best suit their needs. The protocol aims to improve the coordination between our two Crown corporations by placing more emphasis on guiding new customers towards the core strengths of each organization.

We also work closely with the Canadian Commercial Corporation. Our two organizations work together in the international trade space and continue to look for new areas of collaboration with a goal of continuing to improve our overall service to Canadian companies.