UK Export Finance offers £5bn in guarantees to encourage overseas buyers to choose British suppliers

UK Export Finance announced a new pilot on 28 September 2026 offering up to £5 billion in loan guarantees for selected overseas buyers, aiming to increase purchases from British suppliers. The UK government named Brazil, Morocco and Mexico as examples of markets it wants to reach, but has not identified a buyer or a completed deal.

The scheme, called Flexible Finance, would allow a government guarantee to cover up to 80% of a commercial loan to an eligible overseas buyer. The £5 billion is the total potential value of guarantees under the pilot. It is not an amount already lent to buyers, paid to exporters or secured in export orders.

How Flexible Finance is intended to work

HM Treasury says selected buyers would have more flexibility in how they use the funding than under UKEF's existing guarantees. In return for establishing a financing relationship, UKEF would work with each borrower to increase its imports of British goods and services. The agency also says it will help UK suppliers through matchmaking and procurement support.

That structure puts the overseas customer's financing at the centre of the plan. A buyer could obtain access to a supported commercial loan while UKEF works to connect it with British suppliers. BCR Publishing, which covers trade finance, describes this as a route that could bring UKEF into procurement before a specific British export contract has been assembled. Whether that leads to orders will depend on the transactions that follow.

What the £5 billion figure measures

The guarantee would cover part of a commercial loan, rather than replace lending by a bank. BCR Publishing identifies £5 billion as the pilot's maximum aggregate guarantee capacity, not a loan amount already committed or disbursed. Its report says the announcement did not disclose individual lenders, loan sizes, maturities or pricing. The government announcement likewise named no initial borrower or transaction.

The distinction matters for British exporters considering the scheme. A guarantee may make financing available to a potential customer, but an export benefit would require subsequent purchases from UK suppliers. Neither the Treasury announcement nor the independent trade-finance report identifies an order, a supplier contract or employment attributable to Flexible Finance. The announcement does not give a schedule for the first transaction.

Government aims and evidence on jobs

Chancellor John Healey said the government wants British businesses to strike more deals in fast-growing countries where the UK has a limited footprint. Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds presented the pilot as a way to open new markets and support growth and jobs at home. Those statements describe the government's aims; the published material provides no measured export or job result for the new pilot.

UKEF has reported broader estimates for its existing work. In a July report, the agency estimated that £11.2 billion in loans, insurance and guarantees provided during the 2025–26 financial year was expected to support up to £6.4 billion in UK GDP contribution and up to 85,000 full-time-equivalent UK jobs. That report predates Flexible Finance and covers UKEF's wider portfolio, so its figures cannot be treated as outcomes of this pilot.

UKEF also explains a limit of those portfolio estimates: its modelling does not calculate what would have happened without its support. The figures describe jobs and GDP supported, rather than jobs created or additional output caused by UKEF. The agency says eventual activity can differ from projections if exports change in value or loans are repaid early or not fully drawn down.

What remains to be established

The government says Flexible Finance follows other additions to UKEF's offering, including a separate defence export facility announced in June. It said that facility increased its capacity to support defence exports by £50 billion. The new buyer-focused pilot has its own £5 billion guarantee ceiling; the two figures describe different facilities.

For now, the test of Flexible Finance will be whether selected buyers obtain guaranteed loans and then place orders with British suppliers. Published details do not yet identify a first borrower, a participating lender, the terms of a loan or the criteria that will determine eligibility. Without transactions and subsequent purchases, the programme's effects on exports and jobs remain unmeasured.