Fintech matching platform ebroker.com.au has released a series of statistics revealing insights into Australian small-business lending habits, taken from a sample of just over 10,000 unique businesses using the platform over the course of 12 months, ending in June 2019.
“Enquiry rate for Q4 increased by 26 per cent, which clearly underlines the demand from Australian small businesses,” ebroker.com.au COO, Heath Fitzpatrick, said. “The average length of time a business that is looking for finance have been trading is over three and a half years. They are typically needing funds within three weeks.
“Interestingly, 60 per cent of business owners looking for unsecured finance were not homeowners. Of those, 49 per cent were looking for funding within 72 hours, compared to just 30 per cent that were property owners,”
Fitzpatrick said.
“Non-property owners appear to be at a distinct disadvantage in small business with their turnover 55 per cent less than their home-owning counterparts. It would appear the lack of access to capital at each point of the small business lifecycle is thwarting their growth and it could be said, growth of our economy”.
ebroker found in every statistic from average trading that when it came to average lending terms and the speed of funds required, non-homeowners were always in the weaker position. Exception to this is in the case for total funds required, this being one-third of homeowners.
The statistics also noted that for the entire year, the construction industry and building and trade were the sectors making most inquiries to access finance. “In Q1, construction industries, including building and trades, held the highest inquiry statistic for each and every month,” noted Fitzpatrick. “In the following Q2, Q3 and Q4, the construction industry repeatedly featured heavily in loan requests.”
