How CFOs Are Turning Trade Finance Into a Balance-Sheet Advantage

Trade finance has a dirty secret. While containers can be tracked in real time across the world’s oceans, the documentation required to release those goods often moves at the speed of courier envelopes and manual approvals.

Bills of lading, inspection certificates and letters of credit still pass through fragmented systems, requiring reconciliation by armies of operators. These inefficiencies aren’t new news, and trade finance’s analog backbone has been tolerated for dozens of years as the cost of doing business in global trade.

But the news this week (Feb. 24) that Finastra and CargoX are partnering to accelerate the shift from paper-based to fully electronic trade documentation reveals that trade finance may in the midst of a structural digital transformation.

The two firms are integrating blockchain-secured electronic trade documentation into Finastra’s Trade Innovation platform, aiming to digitize one of the most operationally complex and risk-prone areas of global commerce. Their collaboration reflects a broader shift underway across banking, logistics and shipping: the modernization of trade infrastructure itself.

As supply chains grow more complex and capital becomes more expensive, CFOs are rethinking trade finance not as a back-office necessity but as a strategic lever for liquidity, risk control,= and balance-sheet efficiency. What was once a document-heavy compliance function is emerging as a digital discipline tied directly to working capital performance.

See also: Earnings Season Made It Clear: Digitize Supply Chains or Fall Behind

Trade finance has historically resisted digitization for structural reasons. Transactions involve multiple jurisdictions, counterparties with uneven technological maturity, and legal frameworks that until recently required physical documentation. A single shipment might demand dozens of original paper documents, each acting as a title instrument or compliance record.

But scanning paper documents into PDFs has never solved the structural inefficiencies of trade finance. True digitization requires creating verifiable electronic originals that can move instantly across institutional boundaries while maintaining legal enforceability and auditability.

For CFOs, the implications extend well beyond convenience. Digital trade documentation compresses transaction timelines, reduces discrepancies and enables financing decisions to occur earlier in the supply chain cycle. Instead of waiting for documents to be verified post-shipment, companies can unlock capital while goods are still in motion.

“The office of the CFO is broadening its mandate,” Dean M. Leavitt, founder and CEO of Boost Payment Solutions, told PYMNTS, adding that while decisions about how companies pay and are paid “were traditionally a secondary issue for most CFOs,” that legacy hierarchy is now changing as finance leaders come to recognize the working-capital implications of strategic B2B payment design.

According to findings from the 2025/2026 Growth Corporates Working Capital Index, a Visa report in collaboration with PYMNTS Intelligence, 7 in 10 “Adaptive” CFOs and treasurers in the study used working capital solutions to suppliers faster to stay agile and strengthen supplier relationships in a volatile economy.

“Every single day we are spending money and we need to get an ROI on it,” Emanuel Pleitez, head of finance at Finix, told PYMNTS in an earlier interview.

More here: Tariff Whiplash in Washington Leaves CFOs Managing Cash Cycle Fallout

The past several years have demonstrated that supply chain resilience is no longer just an operational concern; it is a financial one. As companies restructure sourcing strategies to mitigate geopolitical exposure, they are onboarding new suppliers, entering unfamiliar jurisdictions and navigating regulatory variability.

Digitized trade finance provides CFOs with a clearer window into those risks. Structured data extracted from electronic documents can feed compliance analytics, automate sanctions screening and enable real-time exposure monitoring across supplier networks. Instead of relying on retrospective audits, finance teams can identify anomalies before they escalate into costly disruptions.

This shift is also being driven by mounting pressure from industry bodies to eliminate paper documentation altogether. Members of the Digital Container Shipping Association have committed to issuing 100% of bills of lading electronically by 2030, a goal that effectively mandates infrastructure change across the trade ecosystem.

That deadline is forcing coordination among shipping companies, banks and technology providers that historically moved at different speeds. Digital documentation is no longer a competitive differentiator; it is becoming a baseline requirement for participation in global trade networks.

At the same time, banks, long the intermediaries of trade finance, face mounting pressure to reduce operational costs in what has traditionally been a low-margin, labor-intensive business. Manual document examination, exception handling and compliance verification require significant staffing, limiting profitability even as transaction volumes grow.

Automation offers financial institutions a path to preserve trade finance as a core offering without absorbing unsustainable costs. The industry’s analog past may be giving way not through disruption, but through necessity. But it is still giving way and moving forward toward a digital future.

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