A guideline to Public Media Archive

Project Fundings from Austria_2.2

Version: 2.2 last change on 21.10.20175

Authors: Manuel Corn, Dipl. Ing. MBA
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NOA GmbH
Johannagasse 42/4
A – 1050 Wien
Tel. +43 1 545 27 00
Fax +43 1 545 27 14
www.noa-archive.com
IBAN: AT481100003993892300
SWIFT: BKAUATWW
Kto#: 03993892300
BLZ: 12000
Tax office number: 051/5462 Ref: 06
Company Registration : FN 204129s
International VAT number: ATU51193907

Document history:

Version Date Contribution Description

2.2 10.10.2017 JCK Upcated Countries
A guideline to Public Media Archive Project Fundings from Austria_2.2 copyright by NOA 2017 page 2 of 8

1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 3
2 BACKGROUND INFORMATION ................................................................................................................. 3
2.1 Loan Conditions ......................................................................................................................................... 3
2.2 Soft loan eligibility of a product/project / Ex Ante Guidance for tied aid ........................................................ 5
According to the OECD Consensus Soft Loan eligibility of the product/project is defined as: ............................................... 5
3 WHAT CAN BE DELIVERED FROM AUSTRIA?............................................................................................ 6
4 FINANCING ............................................................................................................................................... 7
4.2 Timelines: How is the process ? ................................................................................................................. 8
4.2.1 Phase 1................................................................................................................................................................. 8
4.2.2 Phase 2................................................................................................................................................................. 8
4.2.3 Phase 3................................................................................................................................................................. 8
4.2.4 Phase 4................................................................................................................................................................. 8
4.3 How is the flow of a transaction? ................................................................................................................. 8

NOA GmbH, Johannagasse 42, A – 1050 Vienna

A guideline to Public Media Archive Project Fundings from Austria_2.2 copyright by NOA 2017 page 3 of 8

1 Introduction

This document describes the way how specific countries may be awarded to receive financing with an import
grant of the Austrian government, if an Austrian delivery of media archive components (software, storage,
servers, services, digitisation systems, management systems) is realised.

The delivered components and services will not hinder the client to safeguard its heritage as no intellectual
property will be transferred with this action to NOA.
All intangible heritage will belong to the client.

2 Background Information
2.1 Loan Conditions
2.1.1 Soft loan eligibility of the recipient country
Criteria for the soft loan eligibility according to the OECD Consensus as well as the Austrian soft loan and cover
policy of the recipient country is given in accordance with

• the OECD Consensus, meaning countries whose per capita GNI does not exceed the current limit of
USD 3,975 and
• the Austrian cover policy, these are countries for which medium- and long-term cover is available or
• the Austrian soft loan policy, these are countries which are explicitly defined as soft loan target coun-
tries.

2.1.2 Potential Restrictions

If required, country and transaction limits may be applied for selected countries within this group of countries
eligible for soft loans. Such measures might be necessary in the case the recipient country is affected by
negative economic and/or political developments.
No soft loans are granted to countries for which the Austrian cover policy provides no cover.

2.1.3 Countries
A soft loan financing with a grant element is provided from Austria to countries which are listed on the following
(German) site.
http://www.oekb.at/de/exportservice/finanzieren/soft-loans/voraussetzungen/Seiten/empfaengerlaender.aspx 1

Note, that classifications might change over time, as an example Syria was classified to be valid until begin of
2011 – due to obvious political issues in the country it has been removed from the list.

2.1.4 Typical Size of budgets for a media archive

Typical budget sizes for a media archive are between 2m and 10m EUR, which may then be awarded for a Soft
Loan. The purchase of a 20k EUR ingest station will not be subject for a soft loan.

1 Last visited: April, 2017

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A guideline to Public Media Archive Project Fundings from Austria_2.2 copyright by NOA 2017 page 4 of 8

2.1.5 Why should a client apply for a soft loan financing?

Short answer:
Purchase now, start to pay in 5 years, after that over a period of 13-22 years pay back with an interest rate of
only 0% - 2% (plus guarantee rate)

Long answer:
The OECD Consensus requires soft loans to have a concessionally level of at least 35. “Concessionality level” is
the equivalent of such a loan constituting a gift. In relation to usual commercial financing, the benefit of the
soft loan is that 35% of its value is in effect a donation.

Furthermore, soft loans for "Least Developed Countries" according to the UN-Classification (LDC-countries)
must show a grant element of at least 50%.

Concerning soft loan eligible countries which are subject to the "Sustainable Lending Initiative" the grant
element has to be furthermore in conformity with the requirements of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In order to reach the afore mentioned concessionally level, soft loan financing is calculated in the form of a
pre-mixed credit (this is a loan with a low interest rate, a grace period and long repayment terms).

The Example on a country like Kenia (IWF, cat.6):

Terms of the contract* 21-year soft loan plus in-
dividual drawing period
thereof grace period 5 years plus individual
drawing period
number of installments 32 half-yearly install-
ments
Interest rate 0 % p.a.
Guarantee charge less 30 % 1.000 % p.a.
grant**
Start of installments
(contract signed in
2013): 2021
Example: 2013 – 2021
no credit repayments
(only guarantee
premium to be paid)
No interest on credit
amount to be paid
Even for guarantee Charge starts in year 1
charge there is a grant after delivery
element of 30%

*) In order to calculate the grant element according to the IMF rules the individual drawing period as well as all
costs arising for the borrower have to be taken into account.
**) The calculation is based on a 2-year drawing period.

The Example on a country like India (cat.3):

Terms of the contract** 18-year soft loan, 25 Start of installments

half-yearly installments, (contract signed 2013)
the first being due after a 2018
5.5 years grace period
Thereof grace period 5.5 years Example: 2013 – 2018
no credit repayments
(only guarantee
premium to be paid)
Number of installments 25 half-yearly install-
ments
Interest rate 0.4 % p.a.
Guarantee charge 0.70 % p.a.

Please remember that the following terms and conditions are only for information purposes and can be changed
at any time. There is no right to financing based on the following conditions. The terms and conditions have to
be clarified on a case-by-case basis with Austrian Export Credit Agency (OeKB's Credit Department) in
accordance with the soft loan assessment criteria.

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A guideline to Public Media Archive Project Fundings from Austria_2.2 copyright by NOA 2017 page 5 of 8

2.2 Soft loan eligibility of a product/project / Ex Ante Guidance for tied aid
As a grant element needs to follow some OECD rules, it is only given for "non - viability" projects (in terms of
commercial financing) such as described in the "Ex ante guidance for tied aid" of Helsinki.

Non – viable commercial financing is well known for projects such as water clearing plants or hospitals – but
they are less common in the intangible area of AV archiving and preservation.

A positive long term effect of the project for the recipient country and its people needs to be shown.

According to the OECD Consensus Soft Loan eligibility of the product/project is defined as:

• projects which lack capacity with appropriate pricing determined on market principles to generate cash flow
sufficient to cover the projects operating costs and to service the capital employed (Financial Non-Viability,
First Key Test)

or

• projects for which no financing on market or Arrangement terms is available from other OECD-countries (Avail-
ability of Funds, Second Key Test).

For information purposes and to get an idea whether a product/project can possibly qualify for soft loan
financing, the OECD publication "Ex ante Guidance for tied aid" may prove useful. The Ex Ante Guidance is a
collection of experience concerning the soft loan eligibility of products/projects gained since 1992.

NOA GmbH, Johannagasse 42, A – 1050 Vienna

A guideline to Public Media Archive Project Fundings from Austria_2.2 copyright by NOA 2017 page 6 of 8

3 What can be delivered from Austria?

Products Software:
Mainly the interest of NOA is to sell its comprehensive media asset management tool mediARC for the
management of workflows within media archive for digitisation, preservation and long term safeguarding of
valuable audio and media heritage, as well as its advanced metadata model to describe assets in a meaningful
way for the decades to come.

Different software products exist – please visit

http://www.noa-archive.com/products/overview/noas-product-family/
Also, the cooperation with other manufacturers as long as an Austrian origin of more than 60% is given in the
delivery of the products can be set up.

Products Hardware
The complete IT – infrastructure to run the mediARC platform with related actLINE and ingestLINE
components including onsite deployment, replayers new or serviced,
We may in some cases reserve however the right to use one of our partners as main or consortial contractors.
Typical Consortial Contractors for such a project: Oracle, HP, ATOS.

Services and training

Services may include onsite training for correct handling of carriers, trainings for the end customer to teach
self-administration of the complete system, as well as a guantuee for a reasonable period of 3years time.
Transfer of all relevant skills to the client to self sufficiently operate the complete systems is viewed as critical.

What cannot be delivered as CAPEX cost?

NOA cannot provide the people for cataloguing, ingesting, and system administration itself after successful
acceptance and training of the system has been done.

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A guideline to Public Media Archive Project Fundings from Austria_2.2 copyright by NOA 2017 page 7 of 8

4 Financing
4.1 Who are the partners?
A. System integrator in Austria – Main Delivery Partner (NOA or integration partner of NOA)
B. House bank of System integrator: UniCredit Bank Austria AG
C. Stakeholder: the public archive itself, this is normally NOT the contract partner.
D. Grant Client: Ministry of finance of client country
E. Grant giver: Export Credit Agency (ECA) of Austria (OesterreichischeKontrollbank, OeKB), as the agent of
the federal government of Austria

Austrian partners

E
Export Credit Agency (ECA) of
Austria (Oesterreichische
Kontrollbank, OeKB), as the
agent of the federal
government of Austria
CLIENT in target country

Paiment only in case of failure of client

B D
House bank of System
Ministry of Finance of
Integrator (NOA) Loan Contract
Client country
– privately held Installments over up to 18-32 years

Paiment at delivery

A C
Delivers goods and services End Client – i.e. national
Austrian System Integrator
for a “non-viable” archive project archive

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A guideline to Public Media Archive Project Fundings from Austria_2.2 copyright by NOA 2017 page 8 of 8

4.2 Timelines: How is the process ?

Generally speaking, such a process may take from first negotiation until closing between 8 months and 2
years. However, as archive projects are normally not in that hurry, the timelines seem to be legitimated.

4.2.1 Phase 1
• Client (C) shows interest in solutions of NOA (A) bundled with such a financing.
• Client clarifies with its own ministry of finance (D) in a very early phase of the project. whether such a
project would be prioritised and the financing model would be supported by the ministry of finance on
international level (bilaterally with Austria). An LOI from financing Austrian bank is presented, and ministry
of finance of the target country expresses it´s interest – i.e. via LOI. If so ->
• NOA presents a rough first project to ECA for informal approval.
• NOA discusses with end client the possible solution and the necessities and presents a detailed offer.
• Client and NOA agree about a final version.

4.2.2 Phase 2
• NOA presents the final project towards the Export Credit Agency (ECA) (E) and House bank (B) for final
approval.
• The Department for Project and Environmental Analyses of ECA in charge of assessing projects will
analyze the project and notify the project within the OECD.
• A promesse is given to finance the project.

4.2.3 Phase 3
• NOA finalises the delivery contract with end client
• Based upon the delivery contract, the house bank B will set-up a credit agreement and contact the Client´s
representative D to agree on the credit agreement including signatures.

4.2.4 Phase 4
• Upon signature of the credit agreement, deliveries shall be accomplished based upon agreements.

4.3 How is the flow of a transaction?

Delivery is effectuated as follows:
• Housebank “B” pays “A” due to a loan agreement with “D” against delivery documents as agreed in the
supply contract.
• Deliveries are:
o Advance Paiment Client C
o Design Certificate Acceptance by Client C
o Factory Acceptance Vienna of the system with C
o Delivery, Onsite Installation,
o Onsite Acceptance Certificate

NOA GmbH, Johannagasse 42, A – 1050 Vienna