828 repondents
December 2023
Malaysia’s profile is shaped by its manufacturing and electronics supply chains, strong trade orientation, global links and increasing interest in digital connectivity. The 2024 export rebound was driven partly by improving semiconductor demand, and Malaysian FDI increased by 33% in 2024, reinforcing trade-finance demand from electronics, industrial, commodities and regional supply-chain firms.
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.
- Improving trade-document processing and reducing paper (51%)
- Reducing the cost of trade and working-capital finance (48%)
- Managing FX exposure associated with imports, exports or overseas suppliers (43%)
- Improving access to pre-shipment or post-shipment export finance (39%)
- Obtaining receivables finance, invoice discounting or factoring (39%)
- Accessing supplier finance, payable finance or dynamic discounting (35%)
- Improving supply-chain resilience and supplier liquidity (32%)
- Securing adequate trade-finance limits or facilities
- Improving access to import finance, inventory finance or supplier-payment finance
- Reducing days sales outstanding and accelerating receivables collection
- Extending supplier-payment terms without weakening supplier relationships
- Diversifying export markets, suppliers or trade corridors
- Strengthening sanctions, compliance and counterparty-risk management
- Improving visibility of purchase orders, shipments, invoices and payments
- 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.
- Excessive paper documentation or inconsistent trade-document requirements (21%)
- High interest margins, fees or collateral requirements (19%)
- Delayed payment by overseas buyers or domestic customers (16%)
- Limited access to receivables finance or invoice discounting (14%)
- FX volatility or difficulty hedging trade-related currency exposure (12%)
- Slow bank approvals, onboarding or documentation processes (11%)
- Other (7%)
- Insufficient bank credit limits or restricted access to trade-finance facilities
- Difficulty obtaining supplier credit or managing supplier-payment terms
- Counterparty, country, sanctions or compliance risk
- Supply-chain disruption, shipment delays or uncertain delivery schedules
- Limited digital integration between our systems, banks and trade partners
- Lack of internal expertise in trade finance, documentation or compliance
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.
- US$25 million to less than US$100 million (27%)
- US$5 million to less than US$25 million (26%)
- US$1 million to less than US$5 million (17%)
- US$100 million to less than US$250 million (14%)
- Less than US$1 million (7%)
- US$250 million to less than US$500 million (6%)
- US$500 million to less than US$1 billion (3%)
- 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 (38%)
- Broadly balanced importer and exporter (26%)
- Predominantly importer (23%)
- Domestic supplier to local and multinational buyers (8%)
- Domestic anchor buyer with a substantial supplier base (3%)
- Other (2%)
- Logistics, freight-forwarding or trade-service provider
- Cross-border e-commerce or marketplace seller
What are the most common settlement terms in your cross-border trade?
Select up to two.
- Open-account trade (52%)
- Documentary letter of credit (28%)
- Supplier credit (27%)
- Advance payment (19%)
- Documentary collection (12%)
- Bank guarantee or standby letter of credit
- 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 (39%); Plan to use/expand (15%) |
| Export letter of credit confirmation or discounting | — |
| Import loan or trust receipt | — |
| Pre-shipment finance | Currently use (36%); Plan to use/expand (24%) |
| Post-shipment finance | Currently use (36%); Plan to use/expand (24%) |
| Bank guarantee, performance bond or standby letter of credit | Currently use (31%); Plan to use/expand (18%) |
| Receivables finance, factoring or invoice discounting | Currently use (23%); Plan to use/expand (28%) |
| Supplier finance/payables finance | Currently use (17%); Plan to use/expand (25%) |
| Distributor finance | — |
| Inventory finance | — |
| Purchase-order finance | — |
| Trade-credit insurance-backed finance | — |
| Export-credit agency-backed finance | — |
| Digital trade-document platform | Currently use (18%); Plan to use/expand (32%) |
| Trade-related FX hedging | Currently use (38%); Plan to use/expand (24%) |
6. Banking relationship model and selection criteria: Which statement best describes your current trade-finance and supply-chain-finance banking model?
Select one.
- We use a lead bank supported by several specialist, local or correspondent banks (44%)
- We use multiple banks, with no dominant trade-finance provider (24%)
- One primary bank provides most of our trade-finance and supply-chain-finance facilities (16%)
- Trade-finance banking is selected separately by country, subsidiary or business unit (9%)
- 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.
- Digital trade platform, APIs and ERP integration (55%)
- Competitive pricing, margins, fees and collateral terms (50%)
- Expertise in our industry, products and trade corridors (42%)
- Cross-border network, local-market reach and correspondent-bank capability (41%)
- FX capability, pricing and hedging support (38%)
- Speed and quality of implementation, onboarding and client service (35%)
- Credit appetite, facility size and speed of limit approval
- Documentary-trade expertise and handling of discrepancies
- Supply-chain-finance programme design and supplier onboarding
- Risk, sanctions, compliance and regulatory expertise
- 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 | (31%) | (43%) | (21%) | (5%) |
| Presentation and handling of letters of credit, collections or guarantees | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| Connectivity between ERP/procurement systems and banks | (29%) | (40%) | (24%) | (7%) |
| 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.
- Receivables finance against domestic or export invoices (44%)
- Financing suppliers earlier against approved invoices (39%)
- Financing distributors, dealers or downstream customers (30%)
- Dynamic discounting or early-payment programmes (29%)
- Better visibility of supplier financial health and supply-chain risk (27%)
- Financing linked to sustainability, decarbonisation or responsible sourcing (18%)
- We have no current need for supply-chain finance (11%)
- Extending buyer payment terms while protecting supplier liquidity
- Financing suppliers that are too small or too remote to access conventional bank credit
- Inventory or warehouse finance
- Purchase-order or pre-shipment funding
- Faster onboarding of suppliers into finance programmes
- Trade-credit insurance, guarantees or risk-sharing structures
- 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 action 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.
- Implement or upgrade a digital trade platform (43%)
- Introduce receivables finance, factoring or invoice discounting (34%)
- Issue an RFP or review trade-finance banks (29%)
- Integrate ERP, procurement or logistics systems with bank platforms or APIs (28%)
- Expand FX hedging associated with trade flows (27%)
- Expand supplier finance, payable finance or dynamic discounting (25%)
- Make no major change (12%)
- Request additional trade-finance limits or larger facilities
- Add new local, regional or global trade-finance providers
- Reduce or consolidate the number of trade-finance banks
- Increase use of guarantees, standby LCs or trade-credit insurance
- Diversify export markets, suppliers or shipping routes
- Introduce sustainability-linked supplier or trade-finance programmes
- Not sure
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