Against the backdrop of complex and volatile global economic conditions and intensified market volatility, the cross-border e-commerce industry has shown surprising resilience.
Customs data shows that my country’s cross-border e-commerce imports and exports in 2025 will be 2.75 trillion yuan, an increase of 69.7% over 2020.
“Even in a market with higher volatility than in previous years, we see that the ‘rigid demand’ of cross-border e-commerce customers is still strong.” Recently, the co-founder and CEO of a cross-border financial service provider said in an exclusive interview.
As of January 2026, the total number of loans approved by this cross-border financial service provider has exceeded US$7 billion, and the amount of financing facilitated in 2025 alone will be close to US$4 billion, doubling.
He observed that although uncertainty in the global market is increasing, companies that can respond flexibly to changes are trying to seize new opportunities and use funds to build longer-term competitiveness.
When the industry moves from extensive distribution to intensive cultivation, where will the money of overseas companies go?
Changes in capital flow
The first obvious trend he observed is that the focus of corporate capital investment has shifted.
“A few years ago, funds may have been mainly used to purchase goods or invest in operating costs. Now, more investment has shifted to brand building.” He explained.
This shift means a change in corporate decision-making logic.
In the early days of cross-border e-commerce, the business model was relatively simple: relying on the Chinese supply chain, listing cost-effective products on platforms such as Amazon, obtaining traffic through advertising, and earning the price difference.
The core of the capital cycle is “goods” – procurement, stocking, and turnover.
Profitability depends on traffic dividends and efficiency differences.
“But now there are no so-called traffic dividends like before.” The person in charge said.
When platform traffic costs rise and competition becomes increasingly homogeneous, establishing brand recognition, gaining consumer trust, and generating premium capabilities have become the path companies have to take.
This requires a longer investment cycle and a nature that is more “investment” than “turnover.”
During the communication with the merchant team, he observed that many merchants will now conduct in-depth research on the consumer preferences of the target market, and even design products and marketing content for specific cultural scenarios. These require continuous investment and no direct sales returns can be seen in the early stage.
Parallel with branding, there is the “pre-positioning” of the supply chain and the “localization” of operations, which constitute the second dimension of capital flow.
The person in charge mentioned a specific case: Many companies are gradually shifting from the past “drop shipping” model (that is, direct mailing from China to overseas consumers) to leasing or building self-owned warehouses in overseas destination countries to prepare goods overseas in advance.
“They pushed the entire supply chain forward,” he said.
The most direct benefit of this is to shorten the time to market for products and improve the consumer experience and repurchase rate.
This has also completely changed the capital demand structure of enterprises.
When the warehouse is located in China, fund management is relatively centralized. Once overseas warehouses are established in Europe and the United States, the funds will be dispersed into different currencies and regulatory environments, and the needs will become more advanced and complex.
Not only do companies need to prepay funds for these overseas inventories, but they also need to deal with local operating expenses such as manpower, taxes, and compliance.
Funds are like “blood”, penetrating from a single “purchasing driver” to the “capillary network” of the global business chain, putting forward higher requirements for the flexibility and coverage of financial services.
The third stream is technology, especially investment in data tools and AI applications.
The person in charge observed that more and more customers are beginning to invest in AI product selection tools, intelligent advertising systems, inventory forecasting algorithms, etc.
The logic behind it is that in an uncertain market, companies try to combat risks by improving the accuracy of decision-making.
“Today’s entrepreneurs are more mature and they believe more in the insights provided by data,” he said.
This money is spent not to expand the scale, but to improve the “certainty” and unit efficiency of the business.
The deep pain points of cross-border finance
Brand, localization, and technology are not isolated from each other. The person in charge regards them as a coherent system. It is within this system that funds circulate. The challenge of financial services is that it must understand this system.
Despite the strong and increasingly complex demand for funds, he pointed out that cross-border financial services that can meet these needs still have deep pain points: traditional financial institutions are accustomed to looking at the “past” of enterprises, while overseas enterprises need financial support based on the “future”.
The person in charge called this contradiction a “mismatch.”
In the traditional credit model, banks rely on past financial data, audit reports and mortgage assets, while cross-border e-commerce business is often asset-light and has high turnover. It also has industry characteristics of non-linear growth, short opportunity windows, and violent market fluctuations.
When companies are in urgent need of capital to seize a market opportunity, traditional methods often lack foresight in this rapidly changing market environment, making it difficult for many high-growth companies to obtain financial support that matches their development speed.
Enterprises like this cross-border financial service provider emerged at the historic moment.
Its approach is to use AI models to predict the company’s future business model, capital flow and growth dynamics, and provide financial services accordingly.
So far, the service provider has received more than US$750 million in financial support from some global institutions.
But for current overseas companies, funding is not the only issue. The bigger pain point behind it is the contradiction between the fragmentation of financial services and the systematic nature of corporate needs.
“The use of funds is not a single subject,” the person in charge said, “it is a process that runs through the entire system, just like blood flowing to all parts of the body system.” He believes that mature companies “will not look at funds alone”, they will look at the match between funds and business goals, and the long-term returns after investment.
This is also where AI comes in.
Based on the seller’s operation, advertising, logistics and payment collection data, AI can predict the growth pace and funding gap in advance, and dynamically adjust the financing amount and pace under the premise of controllable risks. Therefore, it can predict the appropriate size of funds at key nodes, avoid over-expansion, and support the stability of growth.
The person in charge repeatedly mentioned the word “certainty” during the interview.
In a market with increased volatility, the biggest anxiety for overseas merchants may not be lack of money, but making wrong judgments based on complex information.
Therefore, in the strategic development of this cross-border financial service provider, it is also moving from a single funding platform to a comprehensive service system.
After the company achieves growth, it generates more data and demand, further optimizing financial services, forming a positive cycle.
This is essentially an attempt to fix market information mechanisms, which may have value beyond finance itself.
Behind these methodological changes are changes in the underlying logic of the cross-border e-commerce industry.
External challenges have intensified, and the industry is shifting from “barbaric growth” to “intensive farming.”
And certainty, in this era of rapid change, may be more precious than money itself.
