Business Credit Availability Program

Geared to small and medium-sized companies, the EDC Business Credit Availability Program (BCAP) Guarantee is a risk-sharing arrangement with Canadian financial institutions that enables them to provide additional financing to Canadian businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We provide a guarantee to the customer’s financial institution for the majority of funds borrowed through a new operating line of credit or new term loan. This product supports loans of up to $6.25 million with an 80 per cent guarantee from EDC. 

A later expansion of the EDC BCAP Guarantee was developed for medium-to-larger-sized companies with greater financing needs. Learn more 

Canada Emergency Business Account

Financial support through the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) program is intended to cover non-deferrable expenses such as payroll, rent, insurance and utilities, with a portion eligible for loan forgiveness. 

While more than 220 Canadian financial institutions lead the delivery of the CEBA loans to Canadian businesses, EDC administers the program on behalf of the Government of Canada. We manage all aspects, including the design and ongoing enhancements as requested by the Government to expand eligibility criteria. The program remained accessible until March 31, 2021, with funding to be completed by June 2021. Learn more

Women-owned and women-led businesses

EDC offers a variety of solutions and programs to support women exporters at all stages. Since 2018, we have served 1,052 unique women-owned and women-led businesses, facilitating $2.8 billion in trade for them. 

The numbers rose significantly in 2020 with the expansion of EDC’s domestic powers, the addition of COVID-19 support programs, and our improved ability to enable women-owned and women-led businesses to self-identify when registering with EDC. Notably, 17% of EDC BCAP Guarantees were signed for women-owned and women-led businesses, and 16% of BCAP Investment Matching Program funds were committed to them. Learn more 

Indigenous exporters

Having appointed a national lead for Indigenous exporters in 2019, we embarked on a strategy in 2020 to build lasting partnerships with Canada’s Indigenous community and accelerate the international success of Indigenous companies. 

Our top priority in 2020 was to foster relationships with Indigenous business stakeholders, including government agencies, Band Council officials and financial institutions, to introduce them to EDC and form partnerships. New partnerships resulted in a number of Indigenous companies being referred to EDC’s financial and trade knowledge solutions, and $119.3 million in trade facilitated. EDC’s very first BCAP Guarantee transaction was completed in partnership with First Nations Bank in Yukon. Learn more 

Winnipeg’s Merit Functional Foods wanted to build a world-class, made-to-order facility with a specialized purpose: to extract food-grade canola and pea protein for the global food and beverage industry.

Recognizing the company’s potential, Farm Credit Canada (FCC) committed $25 million in financing to the project. But FCC knew that Merit would need a more substantial package of support to get the facility built. So FCC approached EDC. 

Like FCC, EDC immediately recognized Merit’s unique potential. For starters, the company filled a gap: Canada is great at growing food, but we don’t process much of it here. Merit was going to do this with its new facility, and was going to do it with superior proprietary technology. In fact, Merit’s facility would be the first in the world to extract food-grade canola protein on a commercial scale. What made Merit even more attractive for EDC was the fact that it is a cleantech company. The company’s alternative protein products are derived from plants and are designed to replace animal meat, which is a major contributor to climate change. Read the full story in our annual report.