Export' is a big word for small business, yet Hartford's First International Bank has made selling products overseas an easy, almost routine transaction.

Small business owners, mostly those of family-owned industrial companies, seek out the bank for financing to enable them to sell more goods and services in foreign markets. They find a fairly smooth, well-defined path leading to markets throughout Asia, Latin America, Central Europe and Africa.

As the world's top user of U.S. Export-Import Bank programs for small business, First International has challenged the barriers to international trade and created new opportunities for its customers. We finished first among Ex-Im Bank lenders for the third straight year in 1999 - underwriting 107 Ex-Im Bank-supported loans. The bank also approved more than $163 million in loans backed by the Small Business Administration.

The real winners, however, are the small- and medium-size businesses, which expanded operations and exports in 1999 with the support of the bank's cross-border lending expertise.

During the past four years, the bank has developed financing programs inviting small companies to establish effective global sales networks. These programs are the positive result of globalization in the following vital areas:

The communications revolution. The dramatic improvement in telecommunications worldwide during the last decade made the concept of 'distance' seem old-fashioned. Small business owners now do not give a second thought to hopping on an airplane to attend a trade show in Asia or Latin America because it is so easy to follow up and transact business with contacts once they have returned home. Internet, voice and fax communications combined with super-efficient delivery services have, in many respects, reduced the world to a local market.

Intergenerational changes. In the industrial sector small businesses are often multi-decade family affairs. Grandfathers and fathers are now turning the "old' family business over to daughters and sons, who are breathing new life into them with respect to technology and marketing savvy. Where an old-line industrial company may have defined its marketplace in terms of towns or states, the new generation thinks in terms of countries and continents.

Credit information. Today, there is new confidence in the availability and credibility of information in the international marketplace. The perceived risk of doing business with foreign companies has decreased relative to the perceived returns. It is becoming simple and more affordable to obtain financial statements and credit information - the backbone of financing decisions -from foreign companies.

International legal and accounting standards. That a bank based in Hartford can undertake secured financing in foreign emerging markets is proof lawyers and accountants are encouraging universal principles in their professions. More than 30 accounting consortia now offer global services to small- and medium-size companies.

Government support for small business trade. In the U.S., federal agencies and state governments acknowledge supporting the efforts of small business is good for the economy. Comprehensive programs offered by the SBA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. demonstrate assisting small business exporters is a priority.

E-business - the new frontier. The newest frontier for small business is a global marketplace making borders completely irrelevant - e-business. Within a few years it will be standard for companies to buy and sell products and services, as well as obtain and provide information, through e-business marketplaces linking them in real time with other industry participants.