Trade credit managers have tightened their credit policies over the past year, despite reporting more positive sentiment about the outlook for the economy.According to Veda's latest Credit Manager Survey, only 34 per cent of managers said they would extend credit to an applicant with default information on their credit file. This is the lowest level in three years.Veda's general manager of commercial credit, Moses Samaha, said the tightening was also reflected in lower amounts of trade credit and shorter payment days.Veda surveyed trade credit managers in a range of industries, including finance, manufacturing, insurance, construction and wholesale trade. Sixty per cent said economic conditions had had a negative impact on their businesses in the 2013/14 financial year.Samaha said that, with the outlook improving, credit policies were likely to be relaxed in coming months.Despite weak business conditions, the number of credit applications rose over the year. Forty-five per cent of credit managers reported an increase in credit applications; in last year's survey 40 per cent reported an increase. Eighteen per cent of credit managers reported a fall in applications, compared with 27 per cent last year.Veda found there was an increase in the use of the Personal Property Securities Register. Thirty-four per cent of respondents said they always registered for retention of title over security interests, compared with 33 per cent last year.Thirty-one per cent said they registered depending on the circumstances, compared with 28 per cent last year. Twelve per cent said they were planning to "operationalise" PPSR, compared with ten per cent last year. The proportion who said they had no intention of using the PPSR fell from 30 per cent to 23 per cent.Samaha said the figures showed that the PPSR was gaining recognition among small and medium businesses, after a difficult couple of years following its introduction. However, he said there needed to be more use of the scheme.He said an emerging issue was the new rule under the Privacy Act that required credit providers to become members of an external dispute resolution scheme before they could access consumer credit reports. The rule takes effect next March.Samaha said financial institutions were already using EDR but non-financial businesses would have to sign up for the first time. He said 82 per cent were opposed to mandatory membership on the grounds that it would be costly, administratively burdensome and expose them to a new source of customer complaints.He said he was concerned that businesses would stop accessing credit reports rather than join an EDR scheme and this would rob them of important intelligence about their debtors.