Finance & paymentsen
COFACE (historical reference)
Compagnie Francaise d'Assurance pour le Commerce Exterieur, historically managing France's public export guarantees, now a global private credit insurer.
COFACE (Compagnie Francaise d'Assurance pour le Commerce Exterieur) is an international credit insurer founded in 1946. For decades, it managed public export guarantees on behalf of the French State.
Since 1 January 2017, public guarantee management was transferred to Bpifrance Assurance Export. COFACE is now a purely private, publicly listed credit insurance company.
COFACE's current activities focus on:
- Commercial credit insurance: covering businesses against non-payment risk from their customers (domestic and export)
- Business information: commercial intelligence and solvency scores
- Country risk assessments: the COFACE rating (A1 to E) remains a global benchmark for country and sector risk evaluation
- Debt collection: amicable and legal collection services internationally
COFACE operates in 100 countries and insures over 50,000 companies worldwide. Its quarterly country risk map is a widely used decision-support tool for exporters.