The Australian business lending market at a glance
Ask most owners where to get a business loan and they’ll name their bank. Banks remain the largest source of business credit, but they are one part of a much broader market. The RBA’s October 2025 Bulletin put the share of SMEs that struggle to get finance at roughly one in five — strict criteria, pricing that doesn’t suit and slow processing were the usual complaints — and showed non-bank lenders taking a much bigger slice of small business credit since early 2022, most of all in smaller loans. Put simply, many good businesses are now funded outside the banks.
Each lender type exists because it does something the others don’t. Banks offer long terms and sharp pricing to well-documented businesses. Non-bank and private lenders move outside bank policy. Online lenders assess live bank data. Invoice, asset and trade financiers lend against a specific thing — receivables, equipment, stock — and do that one job well.
How lender types compare
| Lender type | What they want most | Paperwork | Flexibility on credit | Guide |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Major banks | Two years of financials, clean credit, property | Heavy | Low | Major banks |
| Regional and challenger banks | Similar to majors, more relationship time | Heavy | Low to medium | Regional banks |
| Non-bank lenders | Security and a believable income story | Medium | Medium to high | Non-bank lenders |
| Private lenders | Property equity and a clear exit | Light | High | Private lenders |
| Online lenders | Steady turnover in bank data | Light | Medium | Online lenders |
| Invoice financiers | Creditworthy business customers | Medium | Medium | Invoice finance providers |
| Asset financiers | The asset’s value and resale | Light to medium | Medium | Asset financiers |
The pattern is simple: the more paperwork and history a lender demands, the sharper its pricing tends to be; the more flexible it is about credit or documents, the more it relies on security and the more it charges for the risk. Neither end is better in itself. The right lender is the one whose rules fit your business today.
How to choose a business lender
Start with your profile rather than a brand. How long has the business traded? What can you offer as security? How clean is your credit file and your ATO account? How much do you need, for what, and how soon? Those answers rule whole lender types in or out before you speak to anyone. The Lender Matcher does that sorting in six questions, and the guide to comparing business lenders shows how to weigh offers once you have them.
A few rules apply whichever lender you choose:
- Check the lender is genuine before sharing documents, and never pay an upfront fee before an approval.
- Ask for the total repayable in dollars, and what it costs to exit early.
- Read the guarantee and security clauses — they decide what’s at risk if things go wrong.
- Apply to one well-chosen lender at a time rather than many at once.
An illustrative example
Purely illustrative, with no real business involved: a joinery business with eighteen months of trading, a home with good equity and an old paid default wants $250,000 to buy a CNC machine and fund stock for a large contract. A major bank declines because the business hasn’t lodged two years of tax returns. An asset financier is comfortable funding the machine against its value. A non-bank lender accepts BAS and bank statements to fund the stock against the home. Two lender types, each doing what it does best, and the business gets what it needs without a string of declines.
Lenders by size of loan
As a rough guide, unsecured and online lenders work mainly at the smaller end, typically $5,000 to $500,000 for trading businesses. Property-secured lending through non-bank and private lenders spans $20,000 to $5,000,000 in the market we work in, and banks cover the full range for well-documented businesses. Larger facilities generally need property and lenders with deeper funding; our guide to large business loans covers that end of the market.
Where brokers and our service fit in
Brokers and marketplaces aren’t lenders; they’re routes to lenders. Some route your file carefully, some spray it to anyone who’ll pay for a lead. Our approach is the careful kind: when you send an enquiry, a real person reads it, works out which lender type and lender fit, and approaches that lender with your permission. There’s no credit check to ask, your details aren’t broadcast, and the more accurately you answer the form, the more likely the first lender is the right one.
Explore the lender directory
Each guide below covers one lender type: what it funds, its typical borrower, the security and documents it asks for, how it prices risk in broad terms and the reasons it most often declines. If you’re still deciding between loan types, the business loans hub explains each product. When you’re ready for a person to match you, see if you qualify.