More Australian finance executives are prepared to invest aggressively for growth, according to a new survey.American Express has released its annual survey of senior finance executives. The global survey included responses from 33 Australian executives at companies with annual revenue of A$500 million or more.Nineteen per cent of the Australian executives said their companies had plans for "aggressive" spending and investment to support growth, while 50 per cent said they were planning moderate spending and investment.In last year's survey only ten per cent said their companies were planning aggressive spending and investment, and 68 per cent said they were planning moderate spending and investment.The top investment priorities include remaining competitive, entering new markets, better meeting customer needs and business transformation and innovation.Finance executives' IT shopping lists include cloud computing as the top priority, followed by data security, data collection and reporting, and more IT staff.At the same time, more than half (53 per cent) said recent economic or political uncertainty in Australia had made them more cautious about increasing spending and investment, and 72 per cent said uncertainty in other countries had made them more cautious.One impact of this high level of uncertainty is that companies will increase their investment in risk management and security.When asked what conditions they expected in the coming 12 months, 19 per cent said a substantial economic expansion, 45 per cent said a modest economic expansion and 26 per cent said no change. Ten per cent said they expected a modest contraction.In last year's survey 13 per cent said they expected a substantial economic expansion and 47 per cent said a modest expansion. Twenty-seven per cent said no change and 13 per cent said a modest economic contraction.Among the factors that were likely to have a negative impact on business growth in the coming year, availability of capital and changes in interest rates as relatively ranked low concerns.A high proportion (57 per cent) said they would look to "private funding" to improve their working capital position (it was not clear whether this meant private equity or internal funding), ahead of non-secured finance, term loans, supply chain finance and "dynamic discounting" (presumably invoice finance).