The Financial Times reported March 24th, 2011 that the supply of credit to support global trade has recovered after drying up significantly at the height of the global financial crisis. A study of 210 banks in 94 countries by the International Chamber of Commerce said that letters of credit and other forms of trade finance became much cheaper and more widely available during the course of 2010 as financial markets and the global economy recovered.
A similar assessment was made by Kuresh Sarjan, Head of Trade & Supply Chain Finance, Bank of America, at the recent BIIA Business Information Forum 2011. While there is sufficient capacity for Letter of Credit based transactions, nevertheless the trend towards open credit continues.
