PODCAST SERIES| Future of Trade with Standard Chartered

E4: A new blueprint for resilient supply chain finance

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In the new normal of continuous geopolitical disruption and economic uncertainty, supply chain finance (SCF) is moving beyond its traditional remit. 

SCF encompasses a set of financing solutions designed to optimise working capital and improve cash flow for both buyers and suppliers. These solutions range from buyer-led programmes such as approved payables finance (allowing buyers to pay later) to seller-led instruments such as receivables discounting, inventory finance, or distributor finance (which let sellers be paid on time). In essence, these solutions are designed to unlock liquidity across a trade cycle.

But what began as a tool with liquidity in mind has evolved into a buffer for resilience: SCF is now entering a more strategic phase, a means of safeguarding trade flows and better integrating into broader working-capital planning. Especially for companies with multi-tiered supply chains, spanning regions and jurisdictions, all scrambling to adapt to an increasingly volatile trade ecosystem.

In this latest episode of Trade Finance Global’s (TFG) podcast series with Standard Chartered, Future of Trade, TFG’s Mark Abrams discussed the reorientation of SCF as a strategic instrument with Riccardo Scapinello, Global Head of Supply Chain Finance at Standard Chartered.

Restructure and repurpose

SCF has increasingly developed into a balancing act of price, payment terms, and financing. In the pursuit of working capital optimisation, tailor-made financing solutions are increasingly crucial, and “corporates are deploying SCF much more purposefully, much more selectively,” explained Scapinello. “They’re targeting critical suppliers and critical geographies.”

Supply chain flexibility is critical to this, both the physical network and the opportunities it can lend to working capital. 

“Clients are reshoring, nearshoring, or moving their invoices domestically into some markets where they previously did not have a presence,” said Scapinello. 

Disruption caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic, which elucidated the vulnerability of complex supply chains, prompted many businesses to turn to diversifying and nearshoring their supply chains. However, in recent years, mounting tariffs and increased exposure to economic and geopolitical shocks have meant that the supply chain chaos of 2020 doesn’t exist in memory as an isolated incident, but rather as the start of a new way of being.

Standard Chartered’s 2025 Future of Trade survey revealed that 56% of the 1,200 surveyed corporates ranked the geographic realignment of supply chains as a top strategy for building supply chain resilience. 

COVID, many thought, brought an unprecedented degree of volatility. In that case, the volatility brought about by the series of tariffs unveiled by the US on many of its major trading partners must have been, to an extent, precedented. Now, “the conflict in the Middle East is the litmus test for the survival of supply chains amidst longer transit times and delayed payments,” said Scapinello.

With every period of volatility in modern times, supply chains and the tools that finance them, including SCF, ebb and flow, grow from each preceding disaster.

But global fragmentation isn’t just geopolitical; it’s also regulatory. When a multinational’s manufacturing repositions itself in a new jurisdiction, suppliers have to take on the challenge of complying with local regulations. 

When supply chains relocate, they must also adapt to the norms and standards of their new location. Geographic realignment isn’t free of charge: corporates turning to supply chain realignment as a resilience tactic also cite the subsequent costs as a top concern. 

“What’s becoming even more critical is flexibility,” said Scapinello. “As trade routes diversify and supply chains continuously get re-engineered, clients have to build programmes that are far more resilient than they were in the past.”

Businesses nearshoring or reshoring “drives the need to offer extended terms to those clients and buyers, and change the way that they invoice,” he added. This allows for adjustments within new jurisdictions, with the protection of a business’s buyers, distributors, and suppliers being tantamount.

Recently, business models that require longer-term financing – such as software as a service (SaaS) and other recurring-revenue contracts – are emerging; ones where payment terms extend beyond a single trade cycle and need structures that can support multi-month or multi-year terms.

Innovating: interwoven funding, inventory, and increasing dynamism

Central to this evolution is the transformation of the receivables industry. The receivables industry is moving away from legacy systems that previously hindered the flexibility demanded from large corporations, and financing solutions are being approached with increased malleability. Scapinello discussed various innovations within the SCF and receivables space, all built to enforce that fluidity that is essential for navigating uncertain environments. 

The first, multi-funder rails. “Financing solutions are now evolving into combined structures with multiple, interwoven funding sources, being expressed through digital platforms and fintechs,” said Scapinello, all built to scale capacity.  

The second, inventory-based solutions. Inventory days – the number of days a company holds inventory before selling it – has increased since the beginning of the decade, largely because “companies need to secure their supply chain and therefore, carry more raw materials or ready products,” said Scapinello.

Inventory finance is a working capital solution that allows inventory itself to operate as collateral, enabling companies to obtain loans and improve cash flow. Increasing inventory days increases the amount of collateral, easing time and supply constraints for businesses trying to tackle the uncertainty surrounding supply chains. 

The third, specified solutions tailored to their particular geographies. Scapinello has observed these “local-ready structures” cropping up more and more. New corridors bring new currencies, foreign exchange (FX) risks, and debt pressures – making stronger the case for local currency financing rather than defaulting to the US dollar. 

From Standard Chartered’s vantage point, regions like the US and Asia-Pacific (APAC) saw significant growth, and keeping a global vantage point allows for the development of tailored facilities. In Muslim-majority markets, for instance, Islamic finance solutions demonstrate this adaptability within SCF (consider the concept of murabaha, the cost-plus sale structure that replaces interest-bearing instruments with asset-backed transactions). Structural versatility provides treasurers and deal arrangers with price predictability while limiting risk.

Scapinello considers this to play into Standard Chartered’s ability to support multi‑currency trade across key emerging and developed market corridors, combining local‑market liquidity with global structuring. As payments infrastructure and digital settlement rails evolve – including tokenisation and digital assets – firms are starting to prepare future-proof policies, and ones which are not USD‑dependent.

The fourth, dynamic SCF. Dynamic SCF can align funding with where cash is generated and where it’s needed, support multi-currency settlement, and reduce reliance on any single funding market during periods of stress. For treasury teams, the impact is more than speed, cutting days down – the impact is on predictability. 

Certainly, as models grow increasingly dynamic, governance becomes non-negotiable: clear eligibility criteria, independent controls, strong documentation, and performance indicators that measure resilience outcomes (continuity of supply, on-time delivery, supplier health) alongside the traditional working capital metrics.

These are all approaches which improve supply chain resilience by enabling companies to work more effectively with suppliers and buyers across different regions, currencies, and regulatory environments: all while improving the predictability of cash flows. Ultimately, a modern and evolving receivables and payables policy is about ensuring liquidity moves with trade, not with a single reference currency.

A client-centric point of view

SCF, at its core, is designed to redistribute liquidity across a client’s ecosystem. But a one-size-fits-all structure is not suitable for an economic landscape where the ‘size’ changes so drastically and frequently. 

“Clients are increasingly deploying SCF across the broad spectrum of these solutions – so payables, receivables, inventory, distributor finance – and they’re really trying to tailor that to the geography and the currency of the key suppliers and buyers,” explained Scapinello.

For a corporate to leverage SCF solutions, it must first be clear about its desired outcome, be it supporting certain buyers or improving certain terms like stock or production. The strategy should then be built around this particular purpose, being treated as an ecosystem where all pieces and processes interact with one another.

This means “aligning procurement, treasury, finance, sales, and business early on, and making sure that the program is designed in a way that meets the why you’re doing it,” Scapinello said. It is only then that execution can happen.

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Necessity is the mother of invention: the transformation of SCF really took off when the end goal became resilience, not just a stronger balance sheet. 

The end goal is still in sight. For one thing, methods to best aggregate extensive data are key for dynamic SCF models to become more mainstream, and “interoperability and the quality of information” remain barriers to this end, as Scapinello highlighted.

Nonetheless, ground has been covered, thanks to a growing recognition in the industry that to best kindle innovation in SCF, trade flows need to be “treated as an ecosystem program,” he stressed. “Aligning procurement, treasury, finance, sales, and business early on” is the key to leveraging a resilient supply chain. 

E3: Opportunity in disruption: The transformation of commodity trade finance

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As supply chain difficulties and volatile commodity flows once again make headlines around the world, commodity trade finance (CTF) remains the backbone of global commodity transactions. The commodities sector has undergone an impressive evolution in the past decades, driven by macro trends and short-term shocks, and is now facing some of its biggest challenges yet. However, CTF providers are supporting the industry to improve its resilience and innovation. 

In the third episode of Trade Finance Global (TFG) and Standard Chartered’s five-episode podcast series, Future of Trade, TFG’s Mark Abrams spoke to Clemence Avril, Global Head of Commodity Trade Finance at Standard Chartered, to delve into the sector’s shifting landscape and unpack how this change is sparking opportunities. 

“We’ve seen shipping and transit disruptions, longer bottlenecks, and freight costs through the roof. It has been quite a difficult trading environment, but that volatility also creates an opportunity,” said Avril. The conversation maps changes, such as market consolidation, digitisation, and the incorporation of new technology, in the context of today’s changing economic and geopolitical landscape. 

Changing players in a changing industry

Volatility in the Middle East dominates today’s global commodities trade conversation. But the industry has had a hectic few years, between the COVID pandemic, the Ukraine-Russia conflict, trade tariffs and growing trade barriers.  

These protracted disruptions led to much tighter margins for commodity traders, forcing many to reconsider their cash flow strategies. “Clients are becoming increasingly sophisticated, both in their trade asks and in their treasury needs. For example, clients are really mindful about their balance sheet today and are trying to diversify their funding pools,” explained Avril. 

As a result, a diversity of new players is entering the CTF scene. Private equity, private funds, and other non-bank lenders have all begun setting up trade finance teams to meet commodity traders’ growing liquidity needs. 

However, traditional banks still play a central role in facilitating commodity flows. “Standard Chartered has been involved in commodities for years, starting from oil and energy trading all the way to metals and agricultural commodities,” explained Avril.  

As new players enter the market on the financing side, the commodities’ trading landscape has been changing, too. “Over the past four or five years, we have seen a lot of consolidation in the trader space and the exit of smaller players,” said Avril. 

Instead, established companies from other sectors have been entering the commodities space; take, for instance, national oil companies in the Middle East setting up trading arms. Similarly, another change has been the entry of government funds into some commodity markets, especially critical commodities like agricultural goods.      

Overall, the macro trend over the past few years has been decisively tending towards diversification – both in commodity types and their corridors. 

“Everybody wants to capture the supply chain,” explained Avril. “We have seen American oil players setting up trading arms in Singapore and in China, and Chinese trading arms of oil national companies setting up offices in Dubai, London, and New York.” 

That the CTF sector is projected to reach an unprecedented $135 billion in size by 2030 reflects its growing importance and the ample opportunities for both traders and financiers. However, building resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges will be crucial to maintain this growth. 

Building resilience through diversification

Last year, turmoil in the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz led to higher freight costs and rising insurance premiums as cargoes were forced to reroute or face high risks. Only three months into this year, and the turmoil has spread further east and escalated sharply in severity: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, near-halt of air traffic over the Middle East, and strikes on energy infrastructure are making for a fast-moving, unpredictable trade environment.      

The overall trend, then, is set to continue: skyrocketing energy prices, exacerbated by rising compliance costs for their traders, who must ensure supply chains are in line with regulations. 

This has radically changed how the industry looks at its supply chains. “The old model of single origin, single commodity, lowest freight costs – it’s gone,” said Avril. To cope with the uncertainty, commodity traders must have multiple suppliers in a wide range of jurisdictions in order to dodge disruptions and sidestep sanction risks. 

Increasing the optionality in a supply chain – whether it be through multiple individual suppliers, countries of origin, or trade routes – makes it more able to adapt to sudden shocks, increasing its resilience. 

Diversification also comes in the form of moving up or down levels of a supply chain: “Traders are increasingly going up the value chain and taking equity stakes in offshore oil fields or mines in order to enable their supply,” said Avril. 

Other commodity traders are moving away from their onetime area of specialisation and expanding into new commodities – often entering the metals space. Commodities like copper, cobalt, and lithium are growing at unprecedented rates, driven by rising demand for electric vehicle batteries. Demand for lithium is projected to grow by up to 30% this year alone, and copper prices are expected to rise by 14% in the first half of 2026.

Expanding into different markets and sectors also gives commodity traders access to new pools of liquidity, be it through banks or other investors. To respond to this growing, globalised demand, the CTF industry is enacting changes of its own. 

CTF’s future: Adaptation and digitalisation 

Amid these rapid changes, digitalisation, a process two decades in the making, may be facing a turning point. Digitalisation can simplify the trading process for every player in the supply chain, make procurement more flexible, and simplify data collection. This has the added benefit of preventing commodities fraud, which often takes advantage of paper-based documents and unsecured transactions. 

Much of CTF fraud relies on the same mechanisms year after year: the industry loses millions every year at the hands of forgery, double financing, balance sheet fraud, and theft              . Using tools like artificial intelligence (AI) or blockchain could have a massive impact on reducing fraud if used well, explained Avril. “If we start using digital blockchain technology, the risk of paper forgery will be reduced. Transactions will be instant, there’ll be more visibility, and traceability.”

However, “the issue is really the adoption rate,” explained Avril. “Digitisation only works if you have multiple parties adopt the same standards.” Just one customs agent not accepting electronic bills of lading (eBLs), for example, can throw a wrench in a whole transaction.      

The same is true for digital blockchain technology, much discussed but still relatively seldom used in the CTF and wider payments space. “Stablecoins will have a seat at the table for any payments going forward,” said Avril. 

Making payments through digital currencies means that an importer can, for example, pay for a shipment as soon as it reaches the port, even if this happens outside the trading hours of traditional payment systems – thus avoiding expensive demurrage charges and late fees. 

“In the near future, stablecoins will become another element that clients can use as a funding or a payment means for their trade activities,” predicted Avril. The broader category of digital assets – from smart contracts to tokenised cargo and securities – is increasingly a focus of innovation, promising to make trade even faster and more flexible. 

AI, of course, is another major area of innovation, especially for its potential to analyse data and identify fraud, but perhaps not yet. “AI still remains a work in progress: we’re at the beginning of the AI revolution,” said Avril. 

While the timelines for digitalisation and blockchain adoption are still debated, the industry is increasingly moving to adapt to and drive the technology. 

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Digitalisation aside, the biggest drivers that will determine the direction of the CTF industry in the next few years are likely to be geopolitical. “Traders are going to have to be even more nimble in sourcing new trade corridors. With new trade corridors, they might need new trade risk structures, and banks are going to have to adapt,” said Avril.

However, the ultimate outlook remains optimistic. Rather than cowering in the face of shocks, players from across the CTF industry have taken them as an opportunity for growth, which bodes well for the ever-turbulent future. 

Adapting to disruptions “will be key for commodity traders wanting to expand their business and grow it sustainably,” said Avril. “As a bank, we will continue to be innovative in terms of our risk appetite, our structures, and where we accompany our clients so that they can keep bringing commodities throughout the world.”

E2: Infrastructure, innovation, inclusion in digital trade

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Global trade is steadily moving towards digitalisation, but the journey is far from complete. Although ambitious technologies and new platforms have emerged, adoption remains uneven as innovation outpaces the industry’s ability to integrate these solutions across borders.

In the second episode of Trade Finance Global (TFG) and Standard Chartered’s five-episode podcast series, Future of Trade, TFG’s Mark Abrams sat down with Samuel Mathew, Managing Director and Global Head of Documentary Trade at Standard Chartered.

They explored the biggest hurdles in achieving paperless trade — from disparate systems and legacy infrastructure to the practical issues in coordinating dozens of parties across a single transaction.

“People often use digitalisation and digitisation of trade finance quite interchangeably,” said Mathew — but it’s important to distinguish the two.

Digitisation refers to converting documents into electronic form, whereas digitalisation involves redesigning the entire trade process so that contracts, shipping documents, risk checks, and settlement can move fully without paper — requiring systems that interact with one another. 

Interoperability: The biggest hurdle

According to Standard Chartered’s recent report, Future of Trade: Digitalisation, 56% of corporates cite interoperability as the biggest barrier to digitalisation, followed by regulatory barriers and implementation challenges. This points to a larger problem: structural fragmentation.

“Trade is complex operationally: There are anywhere from four to twenty parties in a trade flow,” explained Mathew. “There are multiple hands and multiple parties involved in that flow. For all of that to be fully digital, you need systems that talk to each other, or ideally all to be on the same platform.”

Even when a single party digitalises internally, the chain breaks as soon as one participant is still paper-based. The problem isn’t a lack of innovation, but rather a failure of coordination.

This challenge is most apparent in electronic bills of lading (eBLs). Although their adoption would cut direct trade costs by an estimated $6.5 billion and significantly reduce the industry’s carbon emissions, the shift hasn’t been easy.

On the multiple different providers that help shipping companies digitise their bills of lading, “it’s not practically possible for exporters, shippers, and banks to join every different platform, and the different systems don’t talk to each other,” said Mathew.

This fragmentation results in digital islands: multiple standalone platforms, none of which are interoperable. And when documents can’t move freely between systems, the entire trade flow reverts to paper.

Past blockchain-based approaches encountered similar issues, where closed, permissioned networks required all participants to join the same ecosystem.

The building block for AI

When blockchain first entered the scene, many hoped it would finally connect all parties across a transaction. But, as Mathew put it, “people quickly realised the cost was prohibitive, and getting all parties into the chain proved almost impossible.”

While we are “at a phase where blockchain is tried and tested,” Mathew summarised,  attention has now somewhat shifted to newer technologies like AI. But although AI offers immense potential to automate at scale, adopting something so complex demands solid foundations.

“We know that most banks and corporations that have been around for a while have legacy systems,” Mathew said. According to a recent survey across UK banks, 66% of respondents categorised legacy systems as a hurdle in AI adoption.

For Mathew, AI implementation requires “getting the data and tech infrastructure right — moving them onto the cloud so they can talk to each other, and building a data lake with clean and consistent data.”

AI only works if the underlying data and infrastructure are solid. If your systems are fragmented or your datasets are messy, you’ll just get ‘garbage in, garbage out.’ That’s why banks are shifting to the cloud, which is scalable and creates the kind of unified architecture you actually need before deploying AI at scale.

It is then that AI models can be implemented and offer a more immediately scalable path. They can extract, structure, and analyse value from documents in an automated way, identify opportunities, and mitigate risk.

Digital assets and tokenisation

Beyond AI, digital assets like stablecoins and tokenised real-world assets have also been emerging as areas of progress in digitalisation. Regulatory clarity in key markets — like the US’s Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT 21) and the UK’s Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA) — have accelerated the process.

“If you look at the total USD stablecoin in circulation, it’s about 300 billion,” said Mathew. “It is slated to grow. Some forecasts in our Future of Trade: Digitalisation report show it hitting about two trillion by 2028.”

Rather than transforming trade documents first — an area still held back by interoperability gaps — Mathew believes digital assets will have a much faster impact on payments and settlement. It will be easier to introduce tokenised deposits or stablecoin-based settlement before fully digitising documents like bills of lading.

Under the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Project Guardian — an initiative exploring new digital financial infrastructure — banks and industry partners have already tested the idea of turning trade assets into digital tokens and offering them to institutional investors. The early experiments showed strong interest, suggesting that trade assets could eventually be bought, sold, and distributed in more flexible digital formats.

Regulatory progress: necessary but insufficient

However, while innovation around digital assets, AI, and cloud infrastructure is taking off, regulatory frameworks haven’t fully kept up. Mathew emphasised that legal reform is essential for digital trade to scale, particularly when it comes to recognising digital trade across borders.

“Technology tends to lead regulation,” he said. “Model laws like MLETR, the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records, being adopted by local regulators, are absolutely important. I think that has to happen; without it, things will not move. But it is just a necessary, not a sufficient, condition.”

MLETR enables the legal recognition and use of electronic transferable records. But despite it being crucial to meet legal standards for digitalisation to occur at scale, only twelve jurisdictions have implemented MLETR-aligned laws.

This is a small share relative to global trade flows. It means that a document recognised as electronic in one country may still need to be printed and repapered in another, which weakens the benefits of digitalisation.

The inflexion point

Despite slow regulatory progress, Mathew noted that many parts of the ecosystem are moving. Industry bodies like the Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) have committed their members to adopt eBLs by 2030, which he believes will create the first real tipping point.

He also emphasised the growing interest in “trade as an asset class,” where tokenisation allows trade assets to be broken into smaller digital units and distributed more easily. These developments show that while full digitalisation is still distant, momentum is quietly building.

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Together, these shifts reflect real progress. However, it’s important to recognise that the promise of technological innovation can only be fully harnessed when regulation and interoperability catch up — easing fragmentation across borders and moving the industry closer to a shared, standardised foundation for digital trade.

E1: Powering resilience

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Resilience in global trade has moved beyond a defensive strategy. In an era defined by tariffs, technological developments, and shifting patterns of economic growth, it is now integral to sustainable expansion and long-term competitiveness across global supply chains. 

In the debut episode of Trade Finance Global’s (TFG) new five-part podcast series, Future of Trade with Standard Chartered, TFG’s Mark Abrams sat down with Sofia Hammoucha, Global Head of Trade and Working Capital at Standard Chartered. 

Their discussion unpacked the bank’s latest Future of Trade report, which surveys 1200 corporate leaders worldwide to explore how they are powering resilience amid a shifting global trade landscape, and the strategies they are looking to adopt over the coming three to five years.

The report makes it clear that corporate resilience has shifted from a protective measure to a priority.  Against a backdrop of supply chain shocks, geopolitical shifts, and digitisation, corporates are adopting multi-pronged, offensive resilience strategies that secure growth amid increased volatility. 

Resilience and trade turbulence

“Global trade is possibly going through its most turbulent decade,” emphasised Hammoucha. “Supply chain shocks, geopolitical shifts, and rapid digitisation are redefining how corporates, in particular, operate.”

The report quantifies the scale of this turbulence, showing how nearly all corporates surveyed expressed concern about “rising costs resulting from realigning supply chains, geopolitical uncertainty and changes to tariffs.” 

However, rather than retreat, corporations are responding proactively to disruption. Around 57% of surveyed companies plan to revise their treasury management strategies, step up digitalisation, and geographically realign supply chains to open up new trade corridors. 

A comprehensive approach as such safeguards multiple fronts of trade. “Resilience is really key for success, growth, and continuity,” explained Hammoucha. “It’s not about defending my business so I don’t go backwards – it’s about creating a sustainable future by focusing on resilience as a tool for continuous and long-term growth.”

The three big pressures: Tariffs, tech, and growth

In the past year in particular, tariffs dominated the headlines. Heavily shaped by political agendas, they rewired trade routes and long-term alliances, demanding supply chain modifications and encouraging localisation. However, while tariffs remain in the spotlight, the survey revealed that corporates view three issues as equally important: tariffs, emerging technologies, and global economic growth.

Each of these concerns was cited by 53% of respondents as a top-three concern, indicating that geopolitical shifts and the tariffs that accompany them aren’t acting in isolation, but are unfolding alongside the adoption of new technologies, as well as uncertainty over economic growth. 

Actually, in some cases, emerging technology was ranked as a significantly bigger concern. In Nigeria – designated by the African Union as Africa’s Digital Trade Champion – 74% of corporates cited it among their top-three issues. Such distinctions amplify regional specificities.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia also place a strong emphasis on technological shifts, reflecting government-led efforts to advance manufacturing in fields such as robotics and AI. For these economies, new technologies are seen as opportunities to diversify, reduce trade barriers, and unlock new export potential.

Shifting corridors and rising powers

Regional priorities are redrawing the map of trade. Asked where corporates should be looking in this shifting landscape, Hammoucha stressed that while the United States and China remain the “core nodes” in the global trade ecosystem, different channels are gaining ground. 

“What is rising are new types of corridors, especially intra-regional flows and South-South trade,” said Hammoucha. “India is really at the top of that list in terms of shifting supply chains to and from the country. Within the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region, Malaysia and Indonesia are emerging as rising powers. And then you have the UAE, which is seeing a lot of investment – not only as a shipping and trading hub, but increasingly as a global financial centre.”

McKinsey forecasts that by 2035, 30% of global trade could swing from one corridor to another, with fragmentation, heightened by rising tariff levels, being a key driver. As Hammoucha outlined, this fragmentation has also increased South-South and intra-regional trade. 

According to the United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD), South-South trade doubled from $2.3 trillion to $5.6 trillion between 2007 and 2023: a shift only being amplified by growing political disparity and a localised approach to supply chains. These changes indicate that increased political tension has created an opportunity for certain countries. 

Costs and the digital trade-off

In parallel, in many emerging hubs, the surge in trade has outpaced the availability of structured finance expertise, which refers to specialised financing solutions, such as supply chain finance. This gap makes it harder for corporations to absorb the added expenses of shifting supply chains – a challenge reflected in the report as 62% of respondents expect costs to rise by 5-14% due to supply chain realignment. 

As a treasury strategy, rather than solely controlling short-term costs, many corporates around the world still seek to sustain operations and relationships over the long term. They ensure that, assuming consistent demand, financing is available to back sales. However, once again, there are regional differences when it comes to responses. 

“In Asia, especially in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, rising costs are a key challenge and sit at the front of treasury management reviews,” said Hammoucha. Because many Asian corporates have limited ability to pass costs onto customers, these pressures often translate into local inflation risk. 

Responses vary: some are accelerating digital adoption to create efficiencies and faster turnaround, while others are reshaping treasury strategies by shifting supply chains geographically. Among these approaches, digitalisation is gaining momentum as a practical tool for cost optimisation and resilience. According to the report, nearly 40% of corporates already use a digital supply chain finance platform, and a further 55% plan to adopt one within the next one to two years.

“They want to optimise cash flow. They want to strengthen working capital and ensure they can pay faster and receive faster,” explained Hammoucha. “By adopting a supply chain finance platform, they can monetise their working capital and create efficiencies in treasury management.”

Deep-tier financing

Digitisation also enables better integration across supply chains, setting up the move into deep-tier financing — supporting tier-2, tier-3 suppliers and beyond. 

In global supply chains, tier-1 suppliers are already strong financially and can usually access credit. The real financing gap is often further down the chain, and new digital technologies (such as tokenisation) allow for the financial strength of the big corporate buyer to travel deeper into the supply chain. The bank can tokenise trade assets, those tokens can be fractionalised, and each part can be passed down to successive supply tiers — mirroring the structure of the actual supply chain. This way, financial benefits can trickle all the way down — encompassing even the small, local suppliers, who otherwise couldn’t access funding. 

“That’s resilience,” said Hammoucha, about deep-tier financing. “If you are able to support your tier-2, tier-3, tier-4 — all the way to tier-11 suppliers — that’s how you achieve resilience, because you want your suppliers to survive and continue supplying to you.”

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Framing resilience in today’s turbulence as a board-level conversation, “It’s a team sport,” said Hammoucha. It requires alignment across procurement, treasury, finance, and leadership — demanding both global connectivity and deep-rooted local expertise. 

For banks like Standard Chartered, that means helping corporates navigate shifting trade flows while ensuring liquidity and advisory support reaches even the deepest tiers of the supply chain.

Despite the volatility, Hammoucha emphasised that opportunities outweigh the challenges. “It’s a difficult time. It’s a volatile time. But that’s also the best time for opportunities,” she noted, highlighting efficiency gains, new revenues, and expanded partnerships. 

Trade, she concluded, will continue to adapt: “Water always finds its way — trade is going to continue to flow and it will find new streams.”