In a recently circulated research note, East and Partners observed that trade finance had "escalated in prominence" for Australian businesses. The banking analysts then warned that Australia's banks risked falling behind due to their reticence to take on new approaches to doing business.East said that Letters of Credit, long favoured by banks to guarantee payment between buyers and sellers, were "still plagued by tedious paperwork conditions and lengthy processing times."Instead East, said, "digitalisation of trade finance processes is long overdue, offering substantial opportunities for banks and payments providers to improve efficiency, lower costs and encourage new business prospects."And then there are new products such as bank payment obligations which, according to East, "offer considerable upside in terms of efficiency and cost." A BPO is an undertaking of a purchaser's bank to settle a seller's bank upon completed data matching using SWIFT's proprietary platform.Australia's Top 500 enterprises by turnover rated Westpac highest among the Big Four in terms of e-Trade finance solutions with a score of 1.87 (where 1 is satisfied and 5 is dissatisfied).ANZ is, however, the first Australian bank to adopt and roll out BPO capability, signalling their intent in the Asia-Pacific region. ANZ has experienced a significant increase in e-Trade customer satisfaction from 2.16 to 2.05 since August 2012, rating a close second among the Big Four.Both Australian banks were rated behind HSBC (1.58) and Citi (1.75) for e-Trade finance solutions customer satisfaction.