Working capital finance has a new problem to solve – and it isn’t access to liquidity.
That was the headline from Working Capital at Scale: Closing the Data, Efficiency and Risk Gaps, a Working Capital Forum webinar sponsored by GSCF, featuring voices from GSCF, Crédit Agricole CIB and Silver Birch Finance. As programs grow larger, span more jurisdictions, and pull in a wider mix of funders, the real challenge has shifted: it’s no longer about finding capital, it’s about managing increasingly complex portfolios with visibility, control and resilience.
The data backs it up. In a live poll, more than half of attendees named data visibility — not technology integration, not funding diversification — as the single biggest obstacle to scaling their working capital programmes.
Four gaps standing between corporates and scale
GSCF’s Lori Sternola closed the discussion by naming the structural gaps every organization hits as programs mature:
- Visibility: multiple programs, multiple providers, no consolidated view of exposure or pricing
- Credit: strong, fast-growing companies still locked out by traditional bank criteria
- Buyer adoption: even well-designed programs stall on slow supplier/buyer onboarding
- Integration: working capital tools that still don’t talk to ERP and procure-to-pay systems
The panel’s conclusion: the next wave of innovation isn’t about new financing products. It’s about connecting the ones that already exist.
What’s driving the market’s growth
Receivables finance is on track to be the fastest-growing segment of trade finance this decade — and digitisation is the reason why. Crédit Agricole CIB’s Mona Ghazzaoui pointed to API connectivity, ERP integration and digital onboarding turning what used to be a manual process into a real-time liquidity tool, alongside the rise of AI-driven credit assessment and portfolio-based underwriting.
But more digitization doesn’t mean less complexity. Silver Birch Finance’s Matt Bullard argued the trade finance market is, by nature, fragmented – different counterparties, jurisdictions and risk profiles, every time. His take: stop trying to standardize every transaction, and start building infrastructure that can absorb the complexity instead.
The bottom line
Funding isn’t the constraint anymore. The advantage now goes to organisations that pick the right partners, build technology that scales, and get one unified view across every working capital programme they run.
Missed the live session? Watch the full webinar recording here.