<p>Supply chain finance (SCF) enhances financial access for the real economy, catalyzing cooperation and innovation, and fostering high-quality industrial development. Yet, SCF’s benefits are balanced by risks, making its security a strategic national concern. This leads to the question of SCF’s impact on industrial chain resilience: Does it empower or disempower? The study analyzes the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2011 to 2022, empirically assessing SCF’s impact on resilience with a fixed effect model and symbiosis measure model. Findings show SCF significantly strengthens industrial chain resilience, mainly via innovation incentives and resource optimization. Further analysis shows macroeconomic uncertainty weakens SCF’s positive effects, while intra-industry competition can enhance them. In competitive, low-concentration markets, SCF’s positive impact on resilience is more evident. The research findings expand the theoretical framework of supply chain finance and elucidate the resilience of supply chain finance-enabled industrial chains and their internal mechanisms, offering policy insights for enhancing the modernization of China’s industrial chains and achieving high-quality development.</p>