Mr. Chairman, I thank the honourable member for his question.
Let me talk about how EDC is stepping up in this and how that stepping up will continue through 2009 and will continue to unfold when and if the new legislation is passed, thereby broadening EDC's powers further.
Go back to 2008. Our forecast was for an economic slowdown based on a global slowdown, and we expected exports to drop. We actually projected that our business volumes would be lower than they were in 2007, not higher. So as I already indicated, we obviously saw a huge surge in our business, particularly in the third and fourth quarters of the year, and that resulted in record business volumes and record jumps in customers, and so on.
Just to put some colour on that, look at things like EDC's receivables insurance program. We saw a 50% increase in the number of applications to EDC for credit insurance. There was a 62% jump in the fourth quarter alone. We saw a 19% increase in the number of credit approvals we actually issued, and again, a 31% jump in the fourth quarter. That extended to things like our relationship with the banks, which, through their confirmation business, are really confirming the letters of credit that are the payment mechanism for exporters. So they play a very important role. Last year we saw an 80% increase in the number of transactions we did with banks in that area, and in volume terms, that was more than a doubling of the volume of activity, taking us to over $5 billion in documentary credits we were covering or supporting.
Obviously, we saw at the same time that as the risk increased, so too did the risk to EDC. Not only were they riskier transactions we were taking on, but the rating of those transactions was lower, and that continued to lower through the year. The number of claims EDC began to face began to rise. We had a 13% increase last year in our claims but a 45% jump in the fourth quarter. I could go on. But the first thing to say is that really, before we received any capital infusion from the government, we were using our existing capital base to step up and write more business as it became riskier and as others basically vacated the field or didn't have the capacity.
So as we move now into--