Designed to establish the key pain points and needs of Asia’s international traders, CT embarked on its third survey of the trade finance needs of Asia’s corporate treasurers.

In brief, finance executives want more short-and medium-term lending from their trade banks. The bank payment obligation is not a top priority for our readers, although electronic document presentation is in demand. And while many respondents believe their banks are becoming more cautious in offering finance in certain countries and sectors, they do believe the level of innovation they receive is improving, which compensates for the tricky regulatory environment they find themselves in.

Respondent breakdown
We polled 80 valid corporate executives in Asia-Pacific in February (compared to 42 in 2014). The majority were based in Hong Kong (26.3%), Singapore (22.5%), Indonesia (16.3%), and China (12.5%). The remaining respondents hailed from Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia, Taiwan, Thailand, and India.

A little over a third (35%) of those polled worked in the manufacturing industry. The second largest group were in natural resources (12.5%), with technology coming in third (8.8%), and then telecommunications and media (6.3%).

In terms of size, 21.3% of respondents work for a company with more than $10 billion annual turnover; 25% between $1 billion and $9.9 billion; 16.3% between $500 million and $999 million; 21.3% between $100 million and $499 million; and 16.3% with $99 million or less.

The vast majority of companies polled have between one and 10 bank relationships in Asia-Pacific (72.5%). Two thirds said that between one and five of their relationship banks actively provide trade finance services.