The risk appetite among Australia's chief financial officers has picked up this year, Deloitte reports in its latest CFO Sentiment survey.Forty-four per cent of the CFO's surveyed during the first half of the year said now was a good time to be taking risk onto the balance sheet. When CFO's were surveyed in the second half last year only 27 per cent said it was a good time to take risk.Deloitte said this response reflected the impact of record low interest rates and increased prospects of cuts to company tax rates."It is worth noting that this increase still fails to bring about a net positive result, with the majority of CFOs indicating that now is not a good time to be increasing leverage," Deloitte said.Deloitte also pointed out that there were more of the CFOs surveyed who believed corporate Australia was over-geared than CFOs who believed it was under-geared."This is perhaps the result of increasing concerns regarding the destabilising impact of cheap money and an increasing preference for alternative sources of funding," it said.Deloitte said the overall mood of CFOs was "confidence amidst a sea of uncertainty." Eighty per cent of respondents said uncertainty was holding back business investment but a net 33 per cent said they were more confident (compared with a net five per cent in the previous survey).The "uncertainties" include China's economic slowdown, Brexit, Australia's tax reform debate and the direction of the housing market.