MISSION STATEMENT
"We offer comprehensive solutions for risk management – from credit insurance to information and collection. As the market leader, our primary goal is to provide professional risk management and protect our clients from collection problems. Our broad portfolio of innovative products and services contains a specially designed plan for every company. These plans are transformed into optimal solutions for our clients by our highly qualified and motivated staff. For this reason, I place special value on training and continuous education to improve the ability of our employees to meet the needs and expectations of our business partners."
Martina Dobringer, CEO Coface Central Europe Group
Coface
The Coface Group, a worldwide leader in credit insurance, offers companies around the globe solutions for trade receivables management. In 2010 the Group posted a consolidated turnover of € 1.6 billion euros. 6,400 staff in 66 countries provide a local service worldwide. Each quarter, Coface publishes its assessments of country risk for 156 countries, based on its unique knowledge of companies' payment behaviour and on the expertise of its 250 underwriters. Coface is a subsidiary of Natixis whose share capital was 16.8 billion Euros end December 2010.
Coface Austria & Coface Central Europe
Coface Austria, with its headquarters in Vienna and branches in Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria has been the partner for credit insurance in Austria since its founding 1954. Since 1997 Coface Austria has been a subsidiary of the French Coface, making it part of one of the three Global Players on the credit insurance market. The company has also offered factoring through its wholly owned subsidiary Coface Austria Bank AG since 2007. Coface Austria’s associate Coface Central Europe is the market leader for business information in 12 Central European countries. Additionally, collection services are offered throughout the region.
Coface Central Europe is a joint undertaking of Coface (75%) and KSV1870 (25%). Since 2002 Coface’s CEE headquarters has also been situated in Vienna. Over 700 employees in 22 representative offices guarantee high standards, supported by local market knowledge and integration into the global network of Coface.
SUCCESS ACROSS BOARDERS
The specialised know-how of Coface Austria as a credit insurer and the long-standing presence of Coface Central Europe as the leading provider of business information in Central and Eastern Europe led to an extraordinary honour for the Vienna management in 2002. As a sign of special recognition, the headquarters in Paris transferred responsibility for the Central European Platform to Martina Dobringer, the Chairwoman of both companies. The mission of this organisation is to develop and expand Coface activities in Central Europe. During the following year Coface Austria successfully founded its first foreign subsidiary in Poland, which was followed by a subsidiary in Hungary in 2004 and the acquisition of the former state-owned Lithuanian credit insurer LEID in 2005. Services are now provided to the neighbouring Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia from Vilnius. The local expert knowledge of our international staff and broad-based training at the Vienna headquarters, particularly in the fields of risk evaluation and credit analysis, open new perspectives for clients of Coface Austria in the future markets of Central and Eastern Europe.
Pioneer in expansion
The specialised know-how of Coface Austria as a credit insurer and the long-standing presence of Coface Central Europe as the leading provider of business information in Central and Eastern Europe led to an extraordinary honour for the Vienna management in 2002. As a sign of special recognition, the headquarters in Paris transferred responsibility for the Central European Platform to Martina Dobringer, the Chairwoman of both companies. The mission of this organisation is to develop and expand Coface activities in Central Europe. During the following year Coface Austria successfully founded its first foreign subsidiary in Poland, which was followed by a subsidiary in Hungary in 2004 and the acquisition of the former state-owned Lithuanian credit insurer LEID in 2005. The local expert knowledge of our international staff and broad-based training at the Vienna headquarters, particularly in the fields of risk evaluation and credit analysis, open new perspectives for clients of Coface Austria in the future markets of Central and Eastern Europe.
RISK MANAGEMENT FROM A SINGLE HAND
The association of Coface Austria as the leading credit insurer with Coface Central Europe, the market leader for business information and collection services for more than 20 years with 22 offices in 12 Central-European countries, gives Coface a broad-based offering and makes Coface the risk management partner with the most extensive know-how on this region.
Coface is the only provider in the world to take a completely new approach with the integration of risk instruments – credit insurance, information and collection. The combination of know-how from these three areas makes it possible to gain a wide-ranging view of receivables management and the payment behaviour of customers, and thereby develop an in-depth appraisal of the complete risk potential for our clients. For this reason, Coface always sets credit limits in the country where the insured company is located, and does not rely on the anonymous evaluation of export business partners by foreign organisations. This makes export transactions just as safe as business at home.
