By:
Jaco Gunter
BiiGGA co-founder and CEO
There are significant pressures in the market, no doubt about that.
The largest one is probably Australian Tax Office (ATO) debt. One in three businesses in Australia has some form of ATO debt. The other one is Payday Super changes that have come in which also impacted businesses. And the one that is often silent, is late payments: business owners waiting for invoices to be paid. These pressures combined with an extended period of elevated interest rates including global uncertainty, makes for the perfect storm.
There’s a narrative around the idea that if a business goes to a non-bank lender, then it must be a problem. Often, it’s timing. It doesn’t mean it’s a badly managed business. It doesn’t mean it’s a business in trouble. But they do have a need for working capital at that point in time.
We divide them into two camps – opportunity and emergency. An example for the emergency scenario would be the butcher who has a cold room and that generator is broken. He can’t run his business with a broken generator. That has to be fixed immediately, and he may not have the cash for that. That’s a very good business. He just needs cash to do that.
On the other side of the coin are the opportunity scenarios. We often see business owners who’re running multiple businesses and want to potentially expand those businesses. They may have some form of traditional bank facility in place to help them take that step into that new business venture. But very often, that doesn’t come with working capital to support that new venture. So, what BiiGGA does is look at the underlying business and say we’re quite happy to extend your facility on the existing business, and you can use that funding into the new business.
Maybe just to frame the conversation, around 7,000 brokers wrote some form of commercial lending in the last reporting period, and that’s up 25 per cent on the previous year.
More brokers are jumping into this space, currently one in three brokers are writing a commercial facility. But the other side of this coin is that two-thirds of brokers aren’t necessarily writing commercial loans at present. It’s a fairly unique market from that perspective. There’s not many markets in the world like that. Mortgage brokers in Australia wrote 80 per cent of all new home loans in the March 2026 quarter. That’s at record levels, and that’s up from the previous year.
For those mortgage owners that the brokers are dealing with, a large percentage of them will also be business owners. It’s the mechanic that comes and says, “I’m buying another property.” It’s the hairdresser that’s coming through and saying, “I want to have my mortgage refinanced.”
And there’s the big opportunity there for us. Certainly, as a non-bank lender, if a business owner’s got property, he or she is almost guaranteed to get funding. And I think it’s just about the broker unpacking that and having a more holistic approach.
But the opportunity is certainly on their desks, sitting in front of them.
But the opportunity is certainly on their desks, sitting in front of them.
- Jaco Gunter
From a product perspective, we have to make sure that our product is quick, hassle-free and flexible. I think key for us is that we look at these business owners and we want to make sure we provide them with convenient, appropriate and affordable funding solutions for their businesses. We will rather not fund a business if we think it’s going to put them in a worse position than they are in already.
From a product perspective, we have to make sure that our product is quick, hassle-free and flexible.
- Jaco Gunter
Once accredited, submit a scenario to us. We want an ABN, the name of the business, a brief description of the requirements, and an HTML file with the banking information.
Within half an hour, you’ll get an answer back from us. If you’re happy with the offer, share that with your customer in our broker portal. The customer completes the remaining part application, and we can have the customer funded the same day.
Tune in to hear more!
Jaco Gunter
BiiGGA co-founder and CEO
