Chris Duggan has worked in corporate finance, trade finance and international banking for 30 years. But he doesn’t need inside knowledge to sense how the industry has changed. He can just gaze out his 34th floor window on West Georgia Street in Vancouver, overlooking the Port of Vancouver. There, the size of the cranes now used to unload ships, the volume of activity, and the expansion of the facility remind him of a basic reality of the industry.

"International business is rapidly evolving," says Duggan, who works for RBC Royal Bank as Director, B.C., Global Transactions Solutions (GTS). "There’s a shift in supply chains, with companies going overseas for not just simple goods but complex, high end goods."

But are we seeing a similar shift in how importers and exporters are assessing their financial opportunities, to take advantage of today’s international trade environment?