Bankability starts inside the business

Available capital is not necessarily usable capital. The CFO’s real question is whether funding supports the strategy, and whether the business can use it well.

Can we get the money? Only the first question

Ask the business what it needs from a funding process and the answer is usually short: Can we get the money?

It is a fair question. It is also an incomplete one. Funding that is available but costly, restrictive or hard to use can leave a business no better placed than before. The better question is whether the funding supports the strategy, manages the risks that matter and stays workable as the business changes. For the CFO, that answer starts inside the business, well before any funder is approached.

The requirement begins inside the business

A funding requirement does not arrive with a size and a purpose attached. Both are derived from understanding the business case and the downside risks. Strategy, trading activity, working capital, investment plans and cash generation together determine how much capital is needed, when it is needed and what the business needs it to do.

Global Tea & Commodities shows how directly operations feed through. Its group financial controller, Rhodrick Kalumpha, told Global Trade Review that supply-chain disruption had stretched tea journeys from Kenya that once took around four weeks to as long as 70 days. Goods arrived later, customers paid later, and a funding gap opened up in between. Trade finance, Kalumpha said, gave the company “financial breathing space”.

Nothing in that story starts with a bank. It starts much further ahead. The financing proposition should be an output of the underlying business case, not something developed alongside it. A proposition built separately risks solving the wrong problem: The right amount at the wrong time, or a facility shaped around a need the business does not actually have.

Filling the gap is only part of the decision

Once the requirement is clear, price tends to take over the conversation. It matters. But it is rarely the whole story.

A CFO also needs to weigh the conditions that come attached, how much flexibility the structure leaves if trading patterns shift, how long the funding lasts, who the counterparties are, how risk is shared, and what the structure enables and constrains.

In practice, that comes down to a few plain questions:

• What will it cost, all in?

• What conditions come with it, and can the business live with them in a difficult quarter?

• What risks does it change, and which does it leave exactly where they were?

• How well does it support the strategy the business has actually set?

The cheapest or most available capital is not automatically the capital that best supports the business. The lens that matters is a CFO’s: what does this financing do to the financial and strategic position of the business? Answering it takes a clear view of the cash flows and sensitivities, and an honest comparison of the structures on offer.

Scrutiny exposes what hasn’t been resolved

External funding brings questions. Funders will want to understand the assumptions, test the analysis and see that the business agrees with itself about what it is asking for.

Complex financing processes will often become intense, and some pressure at that point is simply unavoidable. What is avoidable is how much unresolved material arrives with it: assumptions nobody has written down, numbers that differ between teams, decisions not yet taken, unclear ownership of who provides what. Left alone, these accumulate until the moment when there is least time to deal with them.

Preparation does not remove the pressure. It reduces how much of it is self-inflicted. In practice that means:

• clear assumptions, written down and agreed;

• financial analysis robust enough to survive a hard question;

• decisions aligned across finance, operations and the board;

• clear responsibilities, reliable information and good governance.

All of it can be done before the money is needed. Very little of it can be done well afterwards.

Readiness doesn’t end at agreement

Agreeing the facility can feel like the finish line. It is really the start of a different job: can the business use the funding effectively when it needs to?

Global Tea again. As volumes grew, the number of trade documents became hard to manage, and the business was relying on physical couriers, which were slow and expensive. Working with Lloyds, Enigio, its bank in Kenya and Maersk, it moved its Kenya–UK shipments onto digital documents. The first transaction took place in March 2025, and the company says documentation time on that route has fallen from seven days to 24 hours. The route represents roughly a tenth of its business, so it is a single leg rather than the whole picture, but it makes the point well.

The lesson is not that digital documents are better. It is that a funding arrangement only creates its full value if the organisation has the processes and information needed to use it. The finance was there. How quickly it could be put to work depended on the documents, information and ownership around it.

For a CFO, that translates into some practical questions:

• Can we access the funding when we need it?

• Can we meet the requirements today, and as the business changes?

• Is the documentation manageable as volumes grow?

• Are we monitoring utilisation and headroom, or finding out too late?

• Can we meet reporting and governance obligations without a scramble every time?

This is where forecasts, information, processes and ownership need to stay connected. Available capital is not necessarily usable capital.

Bringing it together

Understand the need → Choose deliberately → Prepare properly → Manage effectively

None of that is a product question. Each step is a CFO question first. The requirement needs modelling, the choice needs sound corporate finance judgement, and keeping information and governance connected afterwards is a planning discipline. They work best together, and they work best before the pressure is on.

At TriFidus, we believe financing readiness is not simply about securing capital. It is about ensuring the business understands what it needs, makes deliberate choices about how it is funded, and remains in control once that funding is in place.

Let’s discuss what challenges you’re navigating.