通常意义的公司融资方式有两种:债权融资和股权融资。而资产融资是区别于这两者的第三种融资方式。资产融资是指由公司拥有的资产来驱动的融资方案。当中所指的资产包括流动资产(如:应收账项、存货等)及固定资产(如:厂房及设备等)。资产融资可让中小企业凭借本身的资产来满足其短期以至中长期的集资需要。资产融资能使企业能充分运用资产，亦可使资产与负债互相配合，并配合有关的流动资金需求。
1.短期(可达一年)融资
以发票贴现，或应收账项/存货循环贷款为主。发票贴现: 中小企业将其部分或全部应收账项售予资产融资提供者以套取现金(通常为发票值的60% - 90%)。日后，当融资提供者收到货款后，便会将差额退回该企业。应收账项/存货循环贷款: 融资提供者依据申请贷款者所提交之应收账项及存货的定期报告而提供的循环贷款。
2.中期(一至三年)融资
主要依据企业现有并无抵押之厂房及生产设备，以分期付款、租赁、售后租回等方式贷出款项。
3.长期(三至七年)融资
基于企业拥有的房地产而作出的较长期借贷。
资产融资作为一种与股权和债权不同的企业融资方式，并能够获得广泛的认可，主要是基于以下几个特点:
1.以资产信用替代企业整体信用，有可能降低企业融资成本
无论是股权融资还是债权融资，其依赖的都是对企业作为一个整体经营未来现金流的要求权，对这种要求权能否兑现的评价依赖于公司整体的经营的风险，而风险本身是多样的，各种因素相互影响以及信息的不对称使得准确评判企业的价值是不可能的，投资者通常会通过一定的折价来规避风险，这实际上提高了企业融资的成本。通过资产融资，对资产价值的评价相对容易，且有利于降低信息不对称造成的资产折价，所以以资产信用而不是企业整体信用来融资有可能降低融资成本。
2.开辟了新的融资渠道，实现了企业资产价值的充分利用
资产融资的价值基础不仅仅来源于资产的重置价值而且也来源于资产创造的未来预期收益的折现值。但是长期以来，对于资产的第二类价值来源并不认可，这实际上造成了资产价值的闲置，通过对第二类资产价值的重新认识，从而有可能为企业开辟一种新的融资途径，即使对于那些不存在实体形态的资产，如专利权、经营权都可以作为资产进行融资，从而实现了企业资产价值的充分利用。
3.资产融资实现了表外融资，有利于优化企业的财务结构
资产融资不同于原有的资产运用方式，如抵押或质押融资等的一个显著区别就是不被体现在企业资产负债表中，资产融资只反映为原有资产结构的变化，并不影响负债和所有者权益项，这对于某些负债和股权融资受到限制的企业而言，表外融资无疑为其提供了一种新的融资渠道。
按不同的融资方式，资产融资收费可包括一般服务费及利息。在某些情况下，因资产融资毋须抵押品，收费可能略高于一般银行服务。
资产融资作为一种信用活动，其偿付的基础来源于两个方面，首先是资产直接可用性导致的重置价值;以及资产运用能够获得的未来收益的折现值。资产融资最初的运用主要依赖于有形资产本身的重置价值，随着金融市场和技术的发展，资产融资的价值来源逐步由有形的资产重置价值(称为第一类资产价值)向无形的预期收益折现价值(称为第二类资产价值)拓展，比如某企业拥有汽车这一实物资产，它以前只能通过变卖汽车获取资金，现在可以以汽车运营产生的现金流为基础来融资。伴随着这一思路的转变，各种新的融资技术和方法层出不穷，如确保产生预期现金流的资产的独立性和稳定性而发展的"风险隔离"技术;为确保预期现金流的可实现性而发展的"信用增强"技术，这些技术最后成为了此类融资的标准作法，推动资产融资进一步标准化为资产证券化，资产证券化作为资产融资的高级形态，带来了整个融资技术的提高，"证券化你的梦想"成为了这一方式受到广泛认可的一个佐证。资产融资的发展使得很多原先不能满足的融资需求得到了满足，原先被闲置的资产价值也被充分利用，对于整个社会而言无疑是效率的提高。
There are two types of corporate financing: debt financing and equity financing. The asset financing is different from the third ways of financing. Asset financing is a financing plan driven by assets owned by the company. The assets included in the current assets (such as: accounts receivable, inventory, etc.) and fixed assets (such as: plant and equipment, etc.). Asset financing allows SMEs to rely on their assets to meet their short-term and long-term funding needs. Asset financing can enable enterprises to make full use of assets, assets and liabilities can also cooperate with each other, and with the liquidity needs.
1 short term (up to one year) financing
In the form of invoice discounting, or accounts receivable / inventory revolving loan. Invoice discount: small and medium sized enterprises sell part or all of their receivables to the asset financing provider for cash (usually 60% - 90% of the invoice value). The day after, when the financing provider after receipt of the payment will be returned to the enterprise balance. Accounts receivable / inventory revolving loan: a revolving loan provided by the financing provider on the basis of a periodic report on the accounts receivable and inventory.
2 medium term (one to three years) financing
Mainly depends on the existing plant unsecured and production equipment, the installment, lease, rent, lend money to customer service.
3 long term (three to seven years) financing
Long term loan based on the property owned by the enterprise.
As a kind of financing method with different stock rights and creditor's rights, asset financing can be widely recognized:
1 to replace the overall credit asset credit, it is possible to reduce the cost of corporate finance
Either equity financing or debt financing, which is dependent on the enterprise as a whole management requirements of future cash flow, to evaluate this claim can be fulfilled depends on the company's overall operating risks, and the risk itself is diverse, asymmetric factors mutual influence and make accurate evaluation of enterprise information the value is not possible, investors tend to avoid risk through a certain discount, it actually improves the enterprise's financing costs. Through asset financing, evaluation of the value of assets is relatively easy, and is conducive to reducing the information asymmetry caused by the asset discount, so to credit assets rather than the enterprise overall credit financing is likely to reduce the cost of financing.
2 opened up new financing channels to achieve the full use of the value of the enterprise assets
The value basis of asset financing not only comes from the replacement value of assets, but also comes from the discounted value of the expected future earnings. But for a long time, the asset value of the second kind of source is not recognized, which actually caused the value of the assets idle, by recognizing the second kinds of asset values, which may open up a new way of financing for enterprises, even for the assets that do not have physical form, such as patent rights, management rights can be as an asset financing, so as to realize the full use of the value of corporate assets.
3 asset financing to achieve off balance sheet financing is conducive to optimizing the financial structure of enterprises
Asset financing is different from original assets means a significant difference such as mortgage or pledge financing is not to be reflected in the statement of assets and liabilities, asset financing only reflects the changes for the original asset structure, does not affect the liabilities and owners' equity, the debt and equity financing for some limited companies no doubt, sheet financing provides a new financing channel.
According to the different financing methods, asset financing charges may include general service charges and interest. In some cases, due to asset financing without collateral, charges may be slightly higher than the general banking services.
As a kind of credit activity, the basis of the payment is from two aspects, the first is the reset value caused by the direct asset availability, and the discounted value of the future income. The replacement value of assets financing first mainly depends on its tangible assets, with the development of financial market and technology, the source of value of asset financing gradually from tangible assets replacement value (called the first class to the intangible asset value) expected discounted value (called second assets) to expand, such as some enterprises have this physical assets, it can only obtain funds through the sale of the car before, now can be produced in the automobile operation cash flow based financing. Along with the change of the idea of financing, emerge in an endless stream all kinds of new technology and methods, such as to ensure that the expected cash flow of the assets of the independence and stability and development of the "risk isolation technology"; in order to ensure the expected cash flow can be realized and the development of "credit enhancement" technology, the technology has finally become standard practice of this kind of financing, asset financing promote further standardization of asset securitization, asset securitization is the advanced form of asset financing, bring the whole financing technology, "securitization your dream" has become a way by a widely accepted evidence. The development of asset financing makes many of the original can not meet the financing needs have been met, the original value of the idle assets are also fully utilized, for the whole community is undoubtedly an increase in efficiency.