The Small Business and Family Ombudsman Bruce Billson has come out in support of moves by the banking sector to help SME clients to survive the latest New South Wales lockdown.
New South Wales announced a record number of new coronavirus cases for this wave of the pandemic, with over 100 in the Greater Sydney area yesterday, and no end in sight for a lockdown that is now more than two weeks old.
Banks have rallied around their clients and offered a range of solutions to struggling small businesses, from loan restructuring to deferrals on repayments.
Business NSW recently described the renewal of the lockdown last week as a “crushing blow” to the SME sector.
“It’s a positive move,” said Billson. “It’s something that is worthy of support: the deferment of loan repayments and restructuring to accommodate small businesses doing it tough through the lockdown is a very welcome move and I commend it.”
“It’s the kind of support initiative that I think should be predictable and known in advance, so that small businesses and plan for the economic constraints that COVID presents.”
Billson threw his weight behind the idea of having structured responses to the threat of future lockdowns, especially when it is unknown how long restrictions will last for and how tight those restrictions could be.
“There could be a menu of known support measures from governments and key private sector organisations in a framework that says where there are certain restraints, and a commensurate level of support can be relied upon and that can be levelled up if those constraints become a greater imposition or extend for a long period of time,” he said.
“A known a predictable framework that sees constraints applied consistently, with a level of support and assistance activated as those degrees of economic constraints increase would give small and family business owners a clear path forwards to help navigate these challenging and uncertain times.”
