MIAMI — Corporate trade-finance requirements are extending beyond access to financing. Companies operating across global supply chains also want better working-capital efficiency, transparency and resilience, increasing the importance of connecting financing with the transaction processes and data around it.

Priyamvada Singh, SMBC's Co-Head of Global Trade Finance for the Americas and Global Head of Sales for Trade Finance, said client conversations have moved from financing options towards getting financing to the point where it is needed, supported by technology that can provide transparency, efficiency and automation.

That creates a specific question for SMBC: how far can it connect financing relationships with transaction banking rather than approach trade, cash and other parts of the corporate relationship as separate product opportunities? 

Receivables show how the connection can work

Singh used receivables monetisation to explain the model. SMBC begins with a broader analysis of the client's working-capital needs and looks for areas where it can improve efficiency.

“It's not a product sale; it's a solution sale,” she said.

In receivables finance, she said the bank can combine financing with capabilities such as automated reconciliation and payment matching. The financing releases liquidity tied up in receivables; the transaction-processing tools address part of the operational process around collecting them.

Singh said SMBC wants to provide value “not just by providing balance sheet, but by providing a holistic solution”. Asked whether that meant transaction processing, she replied: “Correct, that is solving a pain point.”

Cash and trade reach an inflection point

Singh said banks have discussed integrating cash and trade for years, but she believes the two are reaching a point where they can increasingly come together rather than remain separate product sales.

“I believe now is probably an inflection point where these two can really start to come together,” she said, adding that SMBC has begun that journey.

The client conversation is also extending beyond treasury. Singh said SMBC increasingly engages procurement, sustainability and technology functions as well as teams responsible for global trade-management platforms.

That matters in supply-chain finance because programme design alone does not guarantee usage. “A supply chain finance programme is only so good as it gets used, and one size doesn't fit all,” she said.

For Singh, data generated across those functions and platforms is central to making financing more efficient. 

Data can move financing closer to the underlying transaction

Trade digitisation remains incomplete. Singh cited connectivity, interoperability, paper-heavy processes and the need for changes within corporates as well as banks.

She nevertheless expects greater adoption of digital trade documents and data over the next 12 to 24 months, supported in part by implementation of the Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR), which provides a legal framework for electronic equivalents of transferable trade documents and instruments.

Her emphasis was especially on data in open-account trade, where financing does not necessarily depend on traditional documents such as bills of lading.

“The data is what is key in being able to finance open account trade much more efficiently and at the point it's needed,” Singh said.

She also separated the value of digitisation from the financing itself. If clients gain operating efficiency from a more digitised process, she said, financing can become an add-on to that improved process rather than the sole reason for digitising it.

The distinction is important: the transaction data can help determine where financing enters the operating cycle instead of technology merely automating an existing bank product.

Global corridors require more than one supply-chain finance structure

Singh said supply chains remain global even as regional trade blocs and bilateral relationships develop. SMBC is positioning itself on different sides of those chains, including supporting an Americas client developing a corridor into Asia or a Middle Eastern client increasing trade with Africa.

She also cautioned against treating supply-chain finance as a single product. Client requirements can range from letters of credit and bills of exchange to open-account structures, while the market has expanded beyond approved-payables finance towards a wider range of solutions supported by technology.

“We want to be as flexible as we can with our clients to provide them the solution that fits their particular need best,” Singh said.

The relevance of SMBC's network therefore lies not only in being present on different sides of a corridor, but in applying different financing and risk-mitigation structures as client requirements change.

Project finance creates a route through the wider lifecycle

Singh identified another connection through SMBC's project and infrastructure financing relationships. The initial project financing can lead to subsequent requirements across imports, procurement, receivables and other parts of the project's supply chain.

“What we are doing now is also focusing on where we can drive value to our clients by offering them solutions that can come not just from the initial project financing, but through the project life cycle,” she said.

That provides a concrete route from an existing financing relationship into transaction banking. Rather than treating project finance, trade finance and cash management as unrelated opportunities, the project lifecycle can generate working-capital and transaction needs after the original financing is arranged.

Singh said SMBC is also looking at how trade and cash connect with other parts of the bank, including capital solutions, loan syndications and foreign exchange. 

The operating cycle, not the product catalogue, is the connecting point

Singh's examples show the connection she is trying to make without requiring SMBC to claim that cash and trade are already fully integrated. Receivables finance can sit alongside reconciliation and matching; transaction data can support open-account financing; and project-finance relationships can lead into later trade and working-capital requirements.

She also said SMBC is examining artificial intelligence for operational efficiency and other applications, while stressing the need to select technologies appropriate to the bank rather than pursue every possible use case.

The more developed proposition in her interview was the connection between financing, transaction processing and data. For SMBC, the opportunity is to use information around the client's operating cycle to determine more effectively where financing is needed and connect it with the wider relationship.