Most Australians won't have heard of the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation (EFIC), but they own it.
If, in the unlikely event all its contracts collapsed today, taxpayers would foot the $3.6 billion bill. While most export credit agencies across the globe are coming under increasing public scrutiny for their part in corporate bribery, environmental devastation, and global poverty, EFIC has operated for the past 40 years in relative obscurity.
It takes on high-risk contracts many private insurers and banks couldn't afford. EFIC chief operating officer Michael Jackson, who has worked with the agency for more than 16 years, describes EFIC as a "market gap player".
"Our mandate from the (federal) government is to work in the market gap, so we will be doing transactions that the private sector can't afford for one reason or another."
