Just like with venture capital, there’s little data on how many traditional lenders like banks are supporting Indigenous Australian business. The ABC approached the big four and none would or could disclose data about financing rates.
NAB’s positioning itself as the market leader. It recently appointed its first Indigenous business and banking specialist, Adam Fletcher.
The Gringai man of the Wonnarua Nation (the Hunter Valley) is acutely aware of all the barriers his people face before coming to the $97 billion bank for finance.
“We’ve historically been systemically locked out of the finance industry,” he says.
He wants to work more with start-ups, but says it’s tough for a bank or equity firm to back any sort of business that comes to it for a loan without collateral.
One example that NAB gave to ABC News of an entity it has given finance to recently shows the route many Indigenous corporations have to take to grow.
Bawrunga Medical Service was set up in regional NSW several decades ago and is run as a not-for-profit. It originally received government funding before self-funding itself through a bulk-billing method.
Bawrunga recently went to a Commonwealth body set up to fund Indigenous business, IBA, for a loan to open a new building. However, its chief executive Leavina Reid says they were knocked back.
Data from the IBA shows it’s given out $280 million in business finance to First Nations businesses and entrepreneurs in the last 5 years.
In a statement, IBA told ABC News that “it’s important that businesses we invest with are at a stage where they are ready”.
Eventually, Bawrunga was put onto NAB’s Indigenous banking team. It’s here that they eventually got the $1.2 million they needed to grow.
Leavina, an elder of Kamilaroi (northern NSW to southern Queensland coast) descent, says the bank “untangled a lot of the red tape” for an Aboriginal organisation like theirs and they were culturally appropriate.
“It gives me great pleasure to be able to sit here and to be able to talk about our journey,” she says.
Original Article -> First Nations entrepreneurs are still fighting ‘the white boys club’, as major banks try to improve – ABC News