Expert solutions in a changing market

In 1997, Mike C. Truter joined the Board of Credit Guarantee, armed with a BCom (Hons) (Econ), AMP from Oxford and a wealth of experience. Today, a decade later, Mike serves as the managing director and chief executive officer of the company, and FAnews spoke to him about the company and the market they operate in.

Before Mike joined Credit Guarantee, he was involved in international import and export financing, spending two years in New York. On his return to South Africa, he was approached by the then CEO of Credit Guarantee to assist with a restructuring phase, and he has been with the company ever since.

Diverse risks

Credit Guarantee is the biggest insurer of company debtors on the African continent. Essentially, there are two major product ranges, Domestic and Export. Both policies cover clients against payment defaults if their customers should go into liquidation or simply reneges on payment.

The export adds a further 'commercial' loss – that of a customer unilaterally canceling the contract and reneging on payment.

Additionally, there are a whole myriad of political risks covered for example: loss due to the laws of the importing country preventing the import; attachment of goods in the foreign country; transfer of payment risk from the buyers' country, just to name three.

Expertise

But what really differentiates Credit Guarantee is their expertise and service levels, says Mike. "Our Business Units specialise in the industries that our clients trade in. These are headed by senior managers, who know the market as well as the companies that operate in them and are literally subject matter experts.

Successes

"In the last three consecutive years, our clients have indicated a 90% satisfaction rating. In addition, we have an ISO 9001:2000 rating and AA+ (Double A plus) first time claims paying ability rating from Global Credit Rating company. I am also proud to say that we have made meaningful progress with our Employment Equity ambitions and about 58% of total staff complement are black, while at supervisory and management level, about 30% are made up of black incumbents."

Market changes

These are impressive achievements in a market that is becoming more competitive with a number of international players now operating in the South African arena. "This has been good for service standards. There has been an overall growth of the market similar to Europe and elsewhere in the world where credit insurers have moved across international borders. Automation of systems has also brought about significant changes to service standards that clients expect today. 10 years ago, credit insurance clients' requests for credit 'facilities' were turned around in three days, while today we talk about 60% of applications being responded to instantaneously and in excess of 90% of all applications being underwritten in one day. This is similar for the processing of claims as well."

Building long-term relationships

Mike describes his leadership style as 'participative'. "I encourage my team to make joint decisions that benefit the company. Of course, I have the ultimate accountability.

"What provides me with the most satisfaction in my work is getting positive feedback from our stakeholders and clients about our good service standards but also from adding real value to their businesses. I believe in building long-term relationships with everyone I interact with. If you hold honesty and integrity as your core values in business, you will always enjoy working."