- Mid-sized APAC firms see clear benefits from working capital solutions, including a 4.3% rise in revenue and a 10% reduction in late-payment losses.
- Despite this, nearly half of these businesses do not use such tools, as many find existing financial solutions too rigid and misaligned with their needs.
- Demand is growing for flexible, digital-first solutions with real-time insights and AI-driven analytics, alongside continued value placed on human expertise.
On Tuesday, 24 March, Visa released its findings from its 2025-2026 Growth Corporates Working Capital Index (WCI). The findings track the financial behaviour of mid-sized businesses across Asia Pacific (APAC), revealing a disconnect between the financial products available to them and their operational needs.
APAC Growth Corporates – mid-sized firms with an annual revenue between $50 million and $1 billion – find efficient cash management essential. According to the WCI, firms using working capital solutions, which are the tools and strategies designed to optimise cash flow, experienced a 4.3% revenue boost, as well as a 10% drop in losses from late payments.
Yet, 47% of the mid-sized firms in APAC continue to not use working capital tools, even though businesses increasingly require flexible access to cash. 41% are seeking simpler digital solutions, while 38% are looking for on-demand financing.
For Visa, a central reason behind this is the shifting working capital realities faced by APAC Growth Corporates, particularly the longer cash cycles, more structural payment delays, and rising pressure to free up cross-border liquidity faster. They identify a dichotomy, where financial solutions haven’t kept pace with the changing realities, remaining too rigid or generic to appeal to APAC’s diverse, fast-moving markets.
Under these circumstances, Visa highlights how financial institutions that operate around actual business cycles are better positioned to cater for the changing needs of APAC Growth Corporates. Across the region, financial institutions that use early supplier payments, virtual cards, and flexible funding are those that stand out for their ability to strengthen liquidity and respond more quickly to emerging opportunities in the market.
By providing real-time insight into incoming and outgoing cash, and accelerating receivables, financial institutions can bring additional capital into corporates’ operations. The WCI’s 2025-2026 findings reveal that 9% of firms used working capital solutions to fund unplanned growth – up from the previous year’s 5.6%.
The WCI also emphasises the growing demand for embedded analytics and simpler digital credit management, highlighting how 61% of APAC Growth Corporates now use artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning for working capital optimisation. This involves forecasting, risk scoring, and automated approvals.
Growth Corporates thereby expect banks to provide on-demand access to liquidity through digital rails and platforms that enable firms to respond to time-sensitive opportunities.
However, corporations continue to value the ‘human touch’, prioritising industry-specific expertise. They are looking for relationship managers with expansive understandings of sector-specific business cycles, capital expenditure needs, and supplier relations.
“CFOs across Asia Pacific want flexible, sector-specific tools that match their operational realities,” said Chavi Jafa, Head of Commercial and Money Movement Solutions, Asia Pacific, Visa. “Our data shows that agile, digital-first strategies, and smarter forecasting are helping companies stay resilient and reinvest freed-up capital into growth.”
The WCI bases its findings on survey responses from over 1,300 chief financial officers (CFOs) and treasurers across 23 countries, with 298 respondents across Asia Pacific.
