NAB has beefed up its offering to commercial brokers with a new range of products designed to improve turnaround times for secure borrowers.
The products were created after extensive consultation with the broker channel and will feature longer loan terms, higher LVRs and loans as big as $2 million.
“The feedback we have received from brokers is that their customers are telling them that the pace that NAB can support is really critical,” said Chris Thomas, executive, commercial broker and equipment finance sales at NAB.
“That’s the key piece of feedback that we have listened to. We have to make it easier for the broker and faster for the customer to access that finance so that they can avail of those opportunities and continue to work through the current environment.
“The set of initiatives that we released to the broker market talk to our SME lending offering, and it’s aimed for customers that have up to $2m in secured business borrowing.”
“We are delivering a package of application terms and conditions that will make it faster for them to apply. We are looking to provide this secured funding against residential or commercial mortgages, with extended loan to value ratios of up to 100% for resi and 80% for commercial.”
“We’re also looking to support those loan applications by assessing the customer’s ability to repay on a self-declared income statement, supported by evidence of business activity.”
“It’s important that they’re trading businesses and they need to have a trading history under current ownership of a year.”
“Like any prudent lender, we’ll continue to do credit checks and it’s important that the customer taxation arrangements are all up to date.”
“Excitingly, we’re also offering loans on a P&I basis up to 30 years, but if it’s against commercial real estate, it has to be owner-occupied.”
The move is designed to sure up NAB’s position as the biggest lender to small businesses in Australia. They have recently launched an Islamic finance scheme for SMEs that is thought to be the first of its kind in Australia.
“At the core, it’s been that for business customers in this environment - where it’s very dynamic and opportunity presents to innovate and restructure and change direction at a rapid pace – access to finance is important the speed and delivery of that finance is critical,” said Thomas.
“NAB is really proud to be Australia’s biggest business bank. We take great pride in supporting Australian business and we take great pride in our partnership with our commercial broker fraternity.”
“It’s a great moment when we can work with those partners to continue to improve and innovate. What we’ve launched is a simple SME loan that makes it easier for brokers to support their business customers, and to make it faster for customers to access finance as they continue to build and grow their businesses in these times.”
“Australia’s economy shows tremendous resilience in these times. We’ve seen over 2020 and 2021 that, despite disruptions, the true resilience of the Australian small business owner has come to the fore.”
“That’s really exciting and the business community will continue to lead the country through recovery, past Covid and beyond.”
