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The treasurer’s toolkit
Why corporates are rethinking working capital to trade throughout uncertainty.
Read time: 7 mins Added: 28/07/26
The global trade environment is being fundamentally reshaped. Heightened geopolitical uncertainty is reconfiguring supply chains, sanctions and regulatory regimes are becoming more complex, and recurrent shocks – from energy markets to shipping routes – are testing the resilience of businesses operating across borders. With uncertainty becoming the new normal, corporates are rethinking how they deploy and manage working capital. But what does an integrated working capital toolkit look like – and how is it playing a unique role in strengthening resilience, liquidity and growth?
Michael Harte LLM
Head, Receivables Finance & Interim Co-Head of Trade Finance,
Transaction Banking Products
For corporates, uncertainty hasn’t reduced the need to trade, but intensified the need for confidence in counterparties, risk mitigation and reliable access to working capital. The role of financial institutions is becoming even more critical, with banks such as Lloyds supporting UK businesses navigate complexity, continue trading internationally, and adapt to a world where the rules, routes and risks of trade are changing.
The working capital toolkit: From isolated products to integrated systems
Effective finance conversations should therefore focus less on individual instruments, and more on the benefits of taking a holistic approach to the end-to-end trade cycle. Questions should focus on how corporates can optimise the full cash conversion cycle, from procurement to collection, while remaining resilient to disruption. This includes how they release trapped cash, achieve greater certainty in cash flow, support supplier stability, and flex terms without destabilising the supply chain.
To reflect how working capital is managed in practice, it is useful to view Open Account products (solutions that support trade transactions where goods are shipped and delivered before payment is made) not as isolated solutions but as an integrated working capital toolkit – financing the interdependent parts of the trade cycle.
Here’s how this works in practice.
Procurement and payables: Protecting supply while preserving liquidity
Inventory: Mobilising value from this strategic asset
Receivables and Distributor Finance: Where cash, risk mitigation and growth intersect
Risk mitigation as an enabler, not a constraint
While the benefits of integrated working capital solutions are clear, trading on open account terms are often considered more high risk in times of economic stress or geopolitics compared to using Documentary Trade instruments, such as Letters of Credit. But in the context of a decade of sustained market shocks, Open Account solutions are increasingly embedding risk mitigation by design – helping to safeguard businesses without losing flexibility.
Working alongside the trade insurance sector, we can reduce single name exposure as volumes scale, while portfolio-based approaches allow exposure to be managed across pools rather than transaction-by-transaction. At the same time, data led monitoring – drawing on payment behaviour, dispute patterns, documentation quality and performance trends – can enable earlier intervention and more confident risk management.
The practical effect is not simply lower risk, but can provide greater freedom to trade with new and older partners, as well as into new markets. Corporates gain the ability to flex terms, diversify markets and adjust supply chains without destabilising their balance sheets, turning open account trading from a position of vulnerability into a basis for growth.
The right tool, at the right point
As risk mitigation becomes embedded, the focus shifts from managing risk itself to optimising how and when different solutions are deployed and combined. This is where businesses need an integrated working capital partner with the scale, international reach and capability to support their working capital needs holistically.
Michael Harte LLM Head, Receivables Finance & Interim Co-Head of Trade Finance, Transaction Banking ProductsEffective finance conversations should focus less on individual instruments and more on the benefits of taking a holistic approach to the end-to-end trade cycle.
In practice, the ‘right tool, right time’ approach means adapting structures dynamically. For example, Supplier Finance or Dynamic Discounting can play a key role where supplier resilience is paramount. Inventory Finance offers support where stock or lead times absorb liquidity. Receivables Finance can be especially effective where Days Sales Outstanding constrains growth, and Distributor Finance offers a solution where downstream liquidity limits sales. Finally, Insured Receivables can play a role where expansion requires both funding and risk transfer. In essence, the value lies in matching the tool to the need – precisely when it matters most.
Integrated working capital solutions as a resilience strategy
In a world where uncertainty is the new normal, CFOs increasingly need a provider that can connect Supplier Finance, Inventory Solutions and Receivables Purchase and help them deploy the right working capital tool at the right moment in the trade cycle. Lloyds brings these capabilities together by combining deep expertise with an integrated working capital toolkit – underpinning adaptation, optimisation and growth in an increasingly complex trading environment.
Article first published in Global Trade Review, June 2026.
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