interest rates: the elephant in the room

funding solutions tailored to your business

After an incredible run for a couple of years, interest rates in Australia finally began rising.

The reason rates stayed at record lows for so long was to protect the economy during the toughest days of COVID. However, all ‘good things’ must come to an end. In May, the Reserve Bank of Australia made the decision to Increase the cash interest rate to 2.35% in September, with the goal of mitigating the rising costs of houses and tempering the national inflation rate.

So far, major lenders have responded by lifting their own interest rates. When it comes to home loans, many borrowers are now finding they have to pull together some extra funds to cover their bills.

But what about asset finance? And how is thornmoney responding to these changes?

yes, we are changing our rates

It’s not easy to talk about prices rising, but as an independent Australian lender, we prefer to be transparent with the brokers and borrowers who we support with asset finance and other loans. Recently, thornmoney moved interest rates in line with market. We have historically had slightly lower rates than some of the other providers, and while we aim to remain competitive, the adjustment could not be avoided.

there’re several reasons why we raised our interest rates.

why the change?

There are a few different reasons that led us to change our asset finance interest rates.

Firstly, what’s known as Bank Bill Swap Rates (BBSW)* have increased dramatically over the past few months, moving from 1% to more than 4%.

Just like any other vendor, we buy from the wholesale market and sell into the retail market. In order to cover the cost of the money we purchase to ‘sell’ to borrowers, there needs to be a margin. Raising our rates was unavoidable if we wanted to be able to remain viable as a business.

The other reason we have raised rates is that they have been very low for as long as we could allow. We still believe we have competitive products when it comes to asset finance and we provide a range of lending options so we can support a wide range of borrowers.

Brokers can still contact us to arrange finance for:

• Machine and equipment loans
• Vehicle loans
• Medical practice equipment loans
• Construction equipment loans
• Small business loans

Our products include flexible solutions and up to 60 month repayment agreements

the silver lining

As an independent lender in Australia, we take pride in an exceptional loan application experience as well as ‘life of loan’ support. While our rates have been adjusted in 2022, we believe we still offer products that make sense for Australian borrowers in terms of price and conditions.

If you’re worried about whether your clients can afford to take on loans, we have been interested to see reports that a strong number of Australian SMEs are performing well and currently looking to hire people, despite toughening conditions.

According to ACA Research’s SME Sentiment Tracker,  51% of SMEs reported a profit in July, up from 47% in the previous month. In addition to this, short-term revenues remain steady with around 28% higher revenues in August.

The fact that SMEs are continuing to report positive revenue and profit numbers despite weaker sentiment regarding economic conditions and inflationary pressures is some reassuring evidence that there is some ‘wriggle room’ when it comes to slight changes in loan repayments. Not to mention that thornmoney sets the fixed interest rate for the term of the contract. A locked in rate will protect SMEs from any further increases that may come in the future. If you’re shopping around for asset finance or equipment loans on behalf of your clients, thornmoney still offers a range of options as well as competitive rates. Create an account to use our helpful calculators so you can share potential borrowing options with your clients.

Contact our BDMs to discuss asset finance options at still-competitive rates.

Disclaimer: This information is for general information purposes only. Therefore, the information contained herein does not constitute financial or professional advice or a recommendation. Ultimately, it has not been prepared with reference to your financial circumstances or business and should not be relied on as such. You should seek your own independent financial, legal and taxation advice as to whether or not this information is appropriate for you.