Despite Massive Washington, D.C. Snow Storms, Ex-Im Bank Continues Service to Customers
Although the federal government in the National Capital Area was closed most of the week, Ex-Im Bank's technology infrastructure and the dedication of its employees working from home enabled the Bank to continue to serve its customers in the United States and around the world.
In a message to Bank employees, Ex-Im Bank Chairman and President Fred P. Hochberg said, Using the Bank's Virtual Private Network, email, and direct access to our applications, a large number of you continued working, helping our customers so that the work of the Bank continued.
Thank you for your dedication to the Bank's work supporting U.S. economic recovery and job creation, Hochberg said.
To make remote work possible, the Bank's Information Management Technology staff ensured all services were operational at 100% capacity.
The Bank provides secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) capabilities to the staff and support contractors, secure web-based mail, secure personal digital assistant (PDA) units, online applications available 24x7 from the EXIM.gov web site, and updates to status information via email and recorded hot lines messages.
For example, just on Monday, 125 users were using VPN, 80 users were using web-mail and 130 users were able to continue uninterrupted communications using their PDAs. In total, during the federal government closure more than 60% of the Bank's 500 employees and contractors accessed Bank systems remotely. The regional office staff around the country were able to continue accessing Washington, D.C. headquarters-based resources to continue seamless operations.
Ex-Im Bank is the official export-credit agency of the United States. The independent, self-sustaining federal agency has for over 75 years helped to create and maintain U.S. jobs by financing the sales of U.S. exports, primarily to emerging markets throughout the world, by providing loan guarantees, export-credit insurance and direct loans.
In fiscal year 2009, Ex-Im Bank set a record, authorizing more than $21 billion in support of U.S. exports to help ease tightened liquidity during the economic crisis. The Bank authorized a record $9.9 billion in loans, guarantees and insurance during the first quarter of fiscal year 2010 (Oct. 1-Dec. 31, 2009) - more than three times the $3.28 billion authorized in the same period of fiscal 2009.
More information is available on the Bank's web site at www.exim.gov.