Smaller companies that need to finance their exports are getting some good news this week: faster service. At its Annual Conference on Friday April 18th, the Export-Import Bank of the United States is inaugurating a new channel for export financing -- one that should greatly expedite loan approvals for exporters. Ex-Im Bank is the federal agency that provides guarantees and insurance to commercial banks to finance exports.

Until now, Ex-Im has allowed commercial banks to pre-approve only those export loans with a repayment period of six months or less. That now changes. Starting next week, qualified banks will be able to pre-approve export loans with payback periods of up to seven years. Using this new authority, the qualified banks should be able to shrink disbursement waits on longer-term loans from months, as it is currently (and in some cases, over a year), to just weeks or even days. That’s how long the shorter-term, pre-approved loans take now.

Speedier export financing will be especially good for manufacturing and equipment exports. These exports have high unit costs, and buyers want longer repayment terms. U.S. sellers have lost customers because of financing delays on these longer-term deals.

SBEA commends Ex-Im Bank for this new program, which they, the commercial banking community, and SBEA have worked on for more than a year.