295 respondents
December 2023
Singapore is the region’s most internationally oriented trade-finance and treasury market. Its respondents have the largest trade volumes, most diversified corridors, most sophisticated banking structures and highest digital maturity. Singapore received a record US$143 billion of FDI in 2024, 6% more than in 2023, reinforcing its role as a regional finance, trading and supply-chain-management hub.
1. Top trade and working-capital priorities
What are your organisation’s three most important trade-finance, supply-chain-finance or cross-border working-capital priorities over the next 12 months?
Select up to three.
- Securing adequate trade-finance limits or facilities (34%)
- Reducing the cost of trade and working-capital finance
- Improving access to pre-shipment or post-shipment export finance
- Improving access to import finance, inventory finance or supplier-payment finance
- Reducing days sales outstanding and accelerating receivables collection (40%)
- Extending supplier-payment terms without weakening supplier relationships
- Accessing supplier finance, payable finance or dynamic discounting (45%)
- Obtaining receivables finance, invoice discounting or factoring (45%)
- Improving trade-document processing and reducing paper (55%)
- Managing FX exposure associated with imports, exports or overseas suppliers (51%)
- Diversifying export markets, suppliers or trade corridors
- Improving supply-chain resilience and supplier liquidity (57%)
- Strengthening sanctions, compliance and counterparty-risk management
- Improving visibility of purchase orders, shipments, invoices and payments (55%)
- Other
2. Greatest obstacle
Which single issue creates the greatest difficulty for your organisation’s cross-border trade, trade finance or supply-chain finance today?
Select one.
- Insufficient bank credit limits or restricted access to trade-finance facilities
- High interest margins, fees or collateral requirements
- Slow bank approvals, onboarding or documentation processes
- Excessive paper documentation or inconsistent trade-document requirements (10%)
- Delayed payment by overseas buyers or domestic customers (15%)
- Difficulty obtaining supplier credit or managing supplier-payment terms
- Limited access to receivables finance or invoice discounting
- FX volatility or difficulty hedging trade-related currency exposure (16%)
- Counterparty, country, sanctions or compliance risk (13%)
- Supply-chain disruption, shipment delays or uncertain delivery schedules (18%)
- Limited digital integration between our systems, banks and trade partners (22%)
- Lack of internal expertise in trade finance, documentation or compliance
- Other (6%)
3. Cross-border trade scale
Approximately what was your organisation’s total annual cross-border trade turnover—imports plus exports—over the most recent 12 months?
Please select a range. Responses will be reported only in aggregate and never attributed to an individual company.
- Less than US$1 million (3%)
- US$1 million to less than US$5 million (8%)
- US$5 million to less than US$25 million (17%)
- US$25 million to less than US$100 million (24%)
- US$100 million to less than US$250 million (20%)
- US$250 million to less than US$500 million (13%)
- US$500 million to less than US$1 billion (15%)
- US$1 billion to less than US$5 billion
- US$5 billion or more
- Prefer not to say
Note: “Cross-border trade turnover” means the aggregate value of the organisation’s imports and exports of goods and relevant trade-related services. It should exclude purely domestic sales.
4. Trade profile and payment terms
Which statement best describes your organisation’s main trade profile?
Select one.
- Predominantly exporter (27%)
- Predominantly importer (21%)
- Broadly balanced importer and exporter (35%)
- Domestic anchor buyer with a substantial supplier base (9%)
- Domestic supplier to local and multinational buyers (5%)
- Logistics, freight-forwarding or trade-service provider
- Cross-border e-commerce or marketplace seller
- Other (3%)
What are the most common settlement terms in your cross-border trade?
Select up to two.
- Advance payment (13%)
- Open-account trade (61%)
- Documentary letter of credit (24%)
- Documentary collection
- Bank guarantee or standby letter of credit (18%)
- Supplier credit (29%)
- Buyer credit or export credit
- Not sure
This question is particularly valuable because traditional trade instruments remain important, but trade-bank revenue and client demand are shifting toward open-account and supply-chain-finance structures. A 2025 CGI/BAFT survey found respondents expected traditional trade products to fall below half of expected trade-finance revenue over the next five years, while open account and SCF continued to expand
5. Trade-finance access and use
Which trade-finance and supply-chain-finance solutions does your organisation currently use, and which are you likely to seek or expand over the next 24 months?
For each item, select: “Currently use”, “Plan to use/expand”, “Aware but no current plan”, or “Not familiar”.
| Solution | Result |
| Import letter of credit | Currently use (35%); Plan to use/expand (12%) |
| Export letter of credit confirmation or discounting | — |
| Import loan or trust receipt | — |
| Pre-shipment finance | Currently use (38%); Plan to use/expand (19%) |
| Post-shipment finance | Currently use (38%); Plan to use/expand (19%) |
| Bank guarantee, performance bond or standby letter of credit | Currently use (39%); Plan to use/expand (17%) |
| Receivables finance, factoring or invoice discounting | Currently use (34%); Plan to use/expand (27%) |
| Supplier finance/payables finance | Currently use (30%); Plan to use/expand (31%) |
| Distributor finance | — |
| Inventory finance | — |
| Purchase-order finance | — |
| Trade-credit insurance-backed finance | — |
| Export-credit agency-backed finance | — |
| Digital trade-document platform | Currently use (39%); Plan to use/expand (34%) |
| Trade-related FX hedging | Currently use (55%); Plan to use/expand (25%) |
6. Banking relationship model and selection criteria
Which statement best describes your current trade-finance and supply-chain-finance banking model?
Select one.
- One primary bank provides most of our trade-finance and supply-chain-finance facilities (11%)
- We use a lead bank supported by several specialist, local or correspondent banks (48%)
- We use multiple banks, with no dominant trade-finance provider (29%)
- Trade-finance banking is selected separately by country, subsidiary or business unit (5%)
- We are actively reviewing, consolidating or re-tendering our trade-finance banks (7%)
- We expect to add banks, fintechs, insurers or specialist finance providers in the next 12 months
What would most influence a decision to appoint, retain or expand a trade-finance or SCF bank relationship?
Select up to three.
- Credit appetite, facility size and speed of limit approval
- Competitive pricing, margins, fees and collateral terms
- Cross-border network, local-market reach and correspondent-bank capability (64%)
- Expertise in our industry, products and trade corridors
- Digital trade platform, APIs and ERP integration (60%)
- Speed and quality of implementation, onboarding and client service (41%)
- Documentary-trade expertise and handling of discrepancies
- Supply-chain-finance programme design and supplier onboarding (46%)
- FX capability, pricing and hedging support (55%)
- Risk, sanctions, compliance and regulatory expertise (52%)
- Receivables finance, credit insurance or export-credit capability
- Sustainability-linked trade, supply-chain or working-capital solutions
- Data, reporting and visibility of transactions and supply-chain flows
7. Trade digitisation maturity
How would you assess your organisation’s current capability in trade-document management and digital connectivity?
| Capability | Largely paper/manual | Partly digitised | Mostly digitised | Fully integrated/digital |
| Preparation and exchange of invoices, purchase orders and shipping documents | (15%) | (35%) | (36%) | (14%) |
| Presentation and handling of letters of credit, collections or guarantees | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| Connectivity between ERP/procurement systems and banks | (12%) | (29%) | (41%) | (18%) |
| Visibility of purchase orders, shipments, invoices and payment status | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| Onboarding and administration of suppliers or distributors into finance programmes | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
Digitalisation should be measured directly, rather than assumed. Trade-bank research has consistently identified digitisation, platform modernisation and intelligent process automation as major priorities, while corporate clients often remain constrained by paper, fragmented data and onboarding complexity.
8. Supply-chain finance and supplier resilience
Which working-capital or supply-chain-finance needs would you most like a bank or finance provider to address?
Select up to three.
- Financing suppliers earlier against approved invoices (47%)
- Extending buyer payment terms while protecting supplier liquidity
- Financing suppliers that are too small or too remote to access conventional bank credit (29%)
- Financing distributors, dealers or downstream customers (32%)
- Receivables finance against domestic or export invoices (44%)
- Inventory or warehouse finance
- Purchase-order or pre-shipment funding
- Dynamic discounting or early-payment programmes
- Better visibility of supplier financial health and supply-chain risk (37%)
- Faster onboarding of suppliers into finance programmes
- Financing linked to sustainability, decarbonisation or responsible sourcing (26%)
- Trade-credit insurance, guarantees or risk-sharing structures
- We have no current need for supply-chain finance (6%)
- Not sure
This question lets banks identify demand for supplier finance beyond large anchor programmes. The ADB specifically highlights the potential of deeper-tier SCF to use anchor-buyer creditworthiness to reach smaller suppliers, while noting that SME access to trade finance remains a material issue.
9. Planned actions and provider-switching intent
Over the next 12–24 months, what actions is your organisation most likely to take in trade finance, supply-chain finance or cross-border working capital?
Select all that apply.
- Request additional trade-finance limits or larger facilities
- Issue an RFP or review trade-finance banks (34%)
- Add new local, regional or global trade-finance providers (28%)
- Reduce or consolidate the number of trade-finance banks
- Implement or upgrade a digital trade platform (49%)
- Integrate ERP, procurement or logistics systems with bank platforms or APIs (49%)
- Expand supplier finance, payable finance or dynamic discounting (34%)
- Introduce receivables finance, factoring or invoice discounting
- Increase use of guarantees, standby LCs or trade-credit insurance
- Expand FX hedging associated with trade flows (27%)
- Diversify export markets, suppliers or shipping routes
- Introduce sustainability-linked supplier or trade-finance programmes
- Make no major change (7%)
- Not sure