Lombard Insurance (Lombard) has restructured their operations to split out the majority of their Guarantee and Trade Credit divisions from the insurance licence to establish an independent UMA - Credeq Africa - specialising in guarantee and trade credit insurance solutions.

Global connectivity

Credeq Africa is part of the newly formed Credeq Group - a global network of guarantee, credit insurance, specialist financial risk and fintech businesses across Africa, Europe, the UK, and Australia. Whilst unified under a global brand, each regional entity maintains operational independence.

Credeq Africa will be led by Helgaard Müller, the former executive head of Lombard Guarantee, ensuring leadership and strategic continuity.

Strong local roots

Antoinette Shand, Managing Director of Lombard, states, "This operational change strengthens our primary focus at Lombard: adopting a partnership-centered approach to build meaningful, long-term collaborations for delivering specialised insurance solutions to the market."

Specialist risk requires specialised expertise

Credeq Africa will partner with Lombard, as an insurer, in South Africa. So whilst Lombard continues to provide financial certainty and capacity for their UMAs and ultimately clients, Credeq Africa - now operating as a specialist risk UMA Partner of Lombard - will be the same expert underwriting team that has developed and delivered guarantees and trade credit insurance solutions in sub-Sahara Africa for the last 35 years.

Credeq Africa complements Lombard’s well-established and diverse portfolio of UMA partners - bringing their portfolio of specialist insurance partnerships to 12.

Directly speaking

To ensure continuity for direct clients, Lombard will have a Guarantee division for the ongoing engagement with and the development of all direct business under Lombard. The Credeq team - who’ve historically worked with these clients in Lombard Guarantee - will be responsible for the risk assessment and underwriting of this direct business and will work closely with Lombard to maintain our service consistency.

Helgaard Müller reaffirms that, “While the business structure has evolved, the people and principles remain unchanged. Credeq Africa builds on our legacy with the same expert team and service focus, now backed by a global brand that gives us greater reach, agility and opportunity across Africa and beyond.”