In recent years, the core executives in some listed companies have held concurrently the leadership positions of industry associations which are known as "red-hat intermediary", thereby acting as the unique identity as red-hat merchants. But what are their real motives and purposes? From a perspective of the availability of corporate commercial credit and based on market competition environment and company property attributes, this paper systematically studies the effect of the identity of executives as red-hat merchants on commercial credit. It arrives at the conclusions that the identity of executives as red-hat merchants increases significantly corporate commercial credit, and the identity of red-hat merchants at the higher levels leads to more commercial credit, showing that the identity of red-hat merchants has fulfilled a complementary function in formal financing channels. Further study finds that, compared with the SEOs, the red-hat merchant identity in non-SEOs will result in the obtainment of more commercial credit; and under high-degree competition market environment and during the international financial crisis, the red-hat merchant identity can significantly increase corporate commercial credit. It also shows that executives holding concurrent posts in industry associations have played a similar role of political connections.