Credit lines with foreign counterparties, which require a greater use of capital, tend to be reduced, especially for small and medium size enterprises and towards emerging markets. We are observing recently that trade finance is going back to simpler instruments, such as documentary credit and confirmed letters of credit, which substantially reduce risk.
The link between financial integration and trade integration has been the transmission mechanism through which the loss of confidence in the financial system has spread to the real economy, and from the country where the crisis started to the rest of the world.