The trade finance gap continues to sit at a persistent $2.5 trillion. The latest Asian Development Bank (ADB) survey on the gap identifies a subtle decrease in the percentage of total trade that the gap represents, as well as significant regional divergence. 

This is a number growing ritualised at industry events, but treating the gap as standard and absolute risks undermining the progress that has been made, and ignores the regional specificity needed when attempting to narrow the gap. 

In 2023, the gap represented around 10.6% of global trade flows, whereas in 2025, this proportion was lowered to 10%. In other words, in spite of trade’s unmet demand for financing, global trade flows increased, while the gap remained stable. 

This is largely because trade financing is allocated unevenly, reflected by the discrepancies across regions. In India, for instance, in 2025, export credit only covered 28.5% of the required $284 billion for shipments, whereas in the UAE, the financing shortfall accounted for just 0.25% of all trade. 

Relative measures should be front and centre because they show whether global trade finance is keeping pace with growth in global trade.

There is also unequal progress made when it comes to narrowing the gap. Despite a significant global increase over the last decade, the African trade finance gap averaged at $74 billion between 2021 and 2024, 20% less than where it stood in the 2010s. Targeted interventions remain crucial. 

Such variations pose concern regarding the fixation on a single, unchanged number: it can risk obscuring both methodological nuance and the regional variation in how trade finance constraints are evolving.

ADB’s global trade finance gap study provides the only global benchmark of unmet trade finance demand, and it’s considered a useful reference point.

There is no comprehensive dataset that directly measures total demand for trade finance and total supply. Instead, ADB relies on sophisticated and complicated survey-based estimation techniques. 

In 2025, ADB surveyed over 110 trade finance providers worldwide, which represents up to a third of global trade finance – although the exact number is unknown. 

However, since 2019, ADB has relied on growth-rate-based extrapolation that stabilises estimates over time. This is because they don’t survey the same exact set of participants each year, meaning that results can vary: because of changing respondents rather than necessarily a change in gap. 

In 2025, they introduced significant methodological refinements, including gathering a committee of experts from different corners of the trade finance community, from payments to academia and international organisations. These experts then reviewed the survey questions to ensure their relevance, to refine the scope of the survey, and to adjust the methodology used when analysing the results.

Additionally, the 2025 brief identifies the experts who were involved, reflecting a heavy presence of multilateral development banks like the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), alongside academics from Western institutions, including the University of St. Gallen and IMD Business School in Switzerland. The geographical breadth and seniority of experts guarantee the survey’s reliability.

Recent changes to the methodology mark progress; but still, the sample size only represents one third of the market, and little evidence is provided to suggest it can be extrapolated to the market as a whole.

A significant portion of ADB’s data comes from its own network of nearly 300 partner banks. In 2025, the International Trade and Forfaiting Association (ITFA) actively invited its members to participate in the survey on ADB’s behalf. 

To qualify as a partner issuing bank of ADB in its Trade and Supply Chain Finance Program (TSCFP), an institution must have positive financial statements, strong corporate governance, and a balanced stakeholder structure. 

This suggests that the survey may be dominated by banks which have sophisticated trade finance infrastructure, as well as a rooted interest in the ‘gap’ narrative. Tier-2 and tier-3 local banks in emerging markets, that perhaps fail ADB’s own due diligence or simply don’t belong to the ‘organised’ side of trade finance, might not be represented in the survey.

ADB also refers to the over 110 surveyed providers as accounting for “a significant share of total global trade finance,” meaning that they represent one-third of the value of global trade. For 110 participants alone to represent one-third would suggest this ‘third’ is dominated by some heavy-lifters who process the vast majority of global flows. 

Therefore, it is safe to assume that the sample is weighted toward high-volume and low-risk corporate trade.

The results also suggest that regulatory burdens play a crucial role in financing rejections – perhaps more so than a lack of capital. Anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) concerns are frequently cited as a top reason for rejections. However, the repeatedly-emphasised $2.5 trillion implies that there isn’t enough money to sustain trade, when in reality the survey points toward a ‘compliance gap’ more than it does a ‘financing gap.’

In spite of methodological limitations, the ADB notes that its global gap number is aligned with the regional studies that have emerged. 

A study by AfDB, focusing on Kenya and Tanzania, provides a stark contrast to the UAE’s minuscule shortfall of 0.25%, as unmet demand for financing in Kenya stands at $3 billion and in Tanzania at $1.3 billion – respectively 14% and 9% of each country’s total value of trade. 

These numbers serve to humanise the notorious $2.5 trillion. They turn this almost-sensationalised statistic into an on-the-ground reality, and reveal region-specific financing needs, while amplifying the ADB’s conclusion that targeted support can deliver tangible results. 

On the drivers of the African gap, the AfDB evidence cited in the brief similarly points to foreign exchange (FX) liquidity constraints, obligor limits with correspondents, shortages of risk capital, and regulatory restrictions in Africa. 

Transferability is therefore partial: risk-sharing/guarantees, trade digitalisation and process standardisation, and scaling supply chain/pre-shipment finance can be replicated, while structural liquidity and risk constraints are harder to change quickly.  

Strikingly, “the AfDB study states that 16.5% of firms – primarily small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – with legitimate need for financing fail to apply, simply due to a ‘self-rationed’ fear of rejection. This is derived from a history of rejection and discouragement. This implies that the ‘$2.5 trillion’ figure, with methodology rooted in a rigid ‘requests vs. rejections’ approach, captures only part of the picture. The real gap is likely much higher than the reported figures.

This also raises the question of why there is so much variation – especially compared to the UAE, where the financing shortfall is so small that it appears as mere statistical noise. 

The 2025 ADB bank survey is global in scope and does not set out country-by-country institutional or regulatory explanations for low-gap markets. What it does provide is evidence on the constraints banks reported as contributing to the gap, most notably constraints on US-dollar/ local-currency funding, unacceptable country/ counterparty risk, and recurring frictions such as know your customer (KYC)/ compliance and correspondent banking limitations.

The change in the trade finance gap relative to global trade flows doesn’t mean that the gap has narrowed in a material sense. Instead, this is reflective of growth in global trade.

Benchmarking the gap against global trade provides scale and consistency over time. At the same time, the dollar estimate remains a useful order-of-magnitude signal for banks, policymakers, and development partners. 

The trade finance gap – regardless of the value that keeps making headlines – is crucial to address. According to ADB, closing the gap is particularly relevant for the current volatile trade climate, especially because changing patterns like increased intra-regional trade and the reconfiguration of supply chains drive higher demand for financing. 

Even though the $2.5 trillion value may be subject to question, what’s crucial is to recognise that the gap hinders economic growth and development. Governments, policymakers, banks, and fintechs all have a role to play in narrowing it.