EXIM Bank Malaysia: Export Credit Insurance and Trade Financing

A Malaysian machinery exporter lands a first order in a frontier market — huge upside, but what happens if the buyer never pays? That single question is the business EXIM Bank Malaysia was built to answer.

What is EXIM Bank Malaysia?

Export-Import Bank of Malaysia Berhad (EXIM Bank) is the country’s national export credit agency: a government-owned development financial institution incorporated on 29 August 1995. Its job is to finance and de-risk cross-border trade and investment, especially where commercial banks hesitate — long tenors, unfamiliar buyers, and so-called non-traditional markets.

The bank’s stated mission is to “contribute to the growth of Malaysia’s economy through trade and investment partnerships worldwide.” In practice that means two things: protecting exporters against the risk of not being paid, and lending money so deals get done in the first place.

Effective 1 May 2025, EXIM Bank became a subsidiary of Bank Pembangunan Malaysia Berhad (BPMB), which is wholly owned by the Minister of Finance (Incorporated) — consolidating Malaysia’s development-finance institutions under a single group.

How does its trade credit protection work?

The flagship de-risking product is Trade Credit Takaful/Insurance. It indemnifies a Malaysian seller when a buyer fails to pay, whether the cause is the buyer’s own default (commercial risk) or events outside anyone’s control such as war, currency-transfer restrictions, or import bans (political and country risk).

The cover is not total — the exporter keeps some skin in the game — but it is substantial:

Feature	Detail
Commercial-risk cover	Up to 90% of loss (export, import, and domestic trade)
Political / country-risk cover	Up to 95% of loss
Structures	Conventional (insurance) and Shariah-compliant (takaful)
Notable benefits	Double tax relief; share of investment profit (takaful only)
Regulator	Bank Negara Malaysia (DFI under DFIA 2002)

Because payment protection sits behind the receivable, an insured exporter can often offer buyers more competitive open-account terms and, in turn, borrow against those receivables more easily.

What financing does EXIM Bank offer?

Protection is only half the mandate; the other half is money. EXIM Bank provides working-capital and term facilities on both conventional and Islamic bases. One widely used facility is Export Credit Refinancing (ECR) — short-term, pre- and post-shipment financing for Malaysian direct and indirect exporters of manufactured goods, agricultural produce, and primary commodities.

Key ECR terms include:

• Pre-shipment tenure: up to 120 days
• Post-shipment tenure: up to 183 days
• No collateral required (financing is unsecured against an approved limit)
• Available to both direct exporters and indirect exporters in the supply chain
• Islamic ECR requires Halal-certified inputs and end products, and goods must fall outside the First Schedule of the Customs Duties Order

Alongside ECR, the bank offers term financing and guarantees to support overseas projects, capital-goods exports, shipping, and infrastructure — the strategic sectors it was chartered to promote.

Who is EXIM Bank for?

The typical customer is a Malaysian company that is either exporting for the first time, entering a higher-risk market, or bidding for a large overseas contract where a commercial lender wants the deal de-risked. It also serves importers of strategic inputs and banks seeking to lay off trade-credit exposure.

Because it is a policy institution rather than a purely commercial one, EXIM Bank tends to step in precisely where the private market falls short — long-dated, high-value, or geopolitically exposed transactions that advance Malaysia’s export agenda.

What’s next

• Confirm current pricing, eligibility, and coverage caps directly with EXIM Bank, as product terms are updated periodically — request the relevant Product Disclosure Sheet before applying.
• If you are weighing takaful versus conventional cover, ask about the double-tax-relief treatment and any profit-share applicable to the takaful structure.
• For working capital, compare EXIM Bank’s ECR tenures against your own trade cycle and your commercial bank’s trade lines.
• Companies expanding abroad should also review how EXIM Bank’s move under the BPMB group affects the broader suite of development-finance facilities available to them.