Secured vs Unsecured Business Loans: The Real Cost Difference in 2026
The published data says the security discount is smaller than most people think, and that being a small business costs you about three and a half times more than being unsecured does. Here is what the RBA actually reports, where the crossover between the two structures sits, and the one number nobody publishes that decides the whole comparison.
The short answer
A secured business loan is backed by property, a general security agreement over business assets, or a specific asset. An unsecured loan has no fixed asset security and relies on business cashflow plus director guarantees. On RBA figures for July 2026, new small business loans averaged 7.44 per cent, and the residentially secured subset averaged 6.89 per cent, a difference of 0.55 percentage points. Over the same month, new small business loans averaged 1.90 percentage points above new large business loans, so within the banking system business size moves the rate roughly three and a half times more than security does. Non-bank unsecured pricing is not in any published series, which is why the comparison has to be run on the actual offers in front of you. As a general shape, secured wins on total cost above roughly $76,000 at a 12-month term and above roughly $32,000 at 3 years, because the establishment costs are close to fixed while the interest saving scales.
What “secured” actually means
The word gets used loosely. There are three distinct kinds of security a lender can take over a business borrowing, and they sit at different points on the cost-and-flexibility spectrum.
Property security. A registered mortgage over commercial or residential property, sometimes the business premises, sometimes the director’s home, sometimes both. The strongest form, it supports the largest facilities and the tightest pricing. The trade-off is the time to arrange, valuation, legals and mortgage registration, and the personal asset exposure where residential property is involved.
General security agreement. A charge over the business’s general assets, including debtors, inventory, equipment and other business property, registered on the Personal Property Securities Register. A GSA gives the lender a claim over the asset base without a specific property mortgage. Common for asset-rich businesses without spare property equity.
Specific asset security. A charge over a single item, typically a chattel mortgage on equipment or a vehicle, where the loan funds the purchase and the asset itself secures it. Cheaper than unsecured, but tied to one item rather than the business as a whole. Our chattel mortgage guide covers that structure.
The type and level of security drives three things: the rate, the ratio the lender will write, and the time to settle. What the lender is really pricing is not the asset’s value but what it could realistically recover, and how quickly.
What “unsecured” actually means
Unsecured in business lending does not mean no security at all. It means no fixed asset security registered against a specific property or item. The lender manages the risk with two other tools.
A director’s personal guarantee. Close to universal. Directors and significant shareholders sign a written guarantee making them personally liable if the business defaults. It does not appear on a property title or the PPSR, but it gives the lender a path to recover against the directors personally. Functionally the loan is secured against the directors’ personal balance sheet, just less formally than a mortgage, and the marketing language obscures that.
Cashflow assessment. Unsecured lenders, particularly non-bank and fintech operators, assess primarily on bank statement cashflow rather than balance sheet position: consistent revenue, healthy account conduct, and capacity to service the repayment from trading alone. Most can read bank data directly through secure read-only feeds, which is why the turnaround is fast.
An unsecured business loan with a director’s guarantee behind it is not unsecured. It is secured against you personally instead of against a title. The difference is what the lender has to do to reach it, not whether they can.
The structure settles quickly because there is no valuation, no mortgage registration, no property documentation and no legal preparation by the lender’s solicitors. The file looks like a cashflow assessment rather than a property finance assessment. See unsecured commercial loans for how those applications run.
What the published data shows
Most articles on this subject assert a rate gap without producing one. There is published data, so here it is.
The Reserve Bank publishes business lending rates monthly in statistical table F7, compiled with APRA, five business days after each month end. For July 2026, on new loans funded in the month:
| RBA series, July 2026 | Outstanding loans | New loans funded in the month |
|---|---|---|
| Small business, total | 7.46 per cent | 7.44 per cent |
| Small business, of which residentially secured | 6.98 per cent | 6.89 per cent |
| Medium business, total | 6.21 per cent | 6.26 per cent |
| Large business, total | 5.74 per cent | 5.54 per cent |
So the residentially secured discount on new small business lending is 0.55 percentage points. One caveat worth stating, because it cuts the other way: residentially secured is a subset of the small business total rather than its opposite. The gap between residentially secured lending and everything that is not residentially secured is therefore wider than 0.55 points, though the series does not let you calculate by how much.
The conventional story about compression is wrong
A common claim, and one this page previously made, is that the secured advantage has compressed since fintech lenders entered the market. On the RBA figures the opposite has happened at the bank end.
| December | New small business, total | Of which residentially secured | Security discount |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 4.16 per cent | 4.16 per cent | 0.00 points |
| 2021 | 3.45 per cent | 2.98 per cent | 0.47 points |
| 2023 | 7.16 per cent | 6.90 per cent | 0.26 points |
| 2025 | 6.55 per cent | 6.05 per cent | 0.50 points |
| July 2026 | 7.44 per cent | 6.89 per cent | 0.55 points |
The discount was effectively nil in 2019 and sits around half a percentage point now. It is noisy month to month, 0.14 points in June 2026 and 0.55 in July, so the level matters more than any single reading. But the direction is widening, not compressing. Whatever fintech competition did to the market, it did not close the gap between secured and unsecured pricing inside the banking system.
The variable that moves your rate more than security does
Put the same July 2026 figures side by side and a larger effect appears.
The security discount on new small business lending was 0.55 points. The gap between new small business lending at 7.44 per cent and new large business lending at 5.54 per cent was 1.90 points. Being a large business rather than a small one was worth about three and a half times what being secured rather than unsecured was worth.
The whole secured-versus-unsecured debate is a fight over roughly half a percentage point. The gap between being small and being large is nearly two points, and it has barely moved in seven years.
That gap is stubborn. It was 1.99 points in December 2019 and 1.90 points in July 2026. Seven years, two rate cycles, a wave of new lenders, and the size premium is essentially where it started.
The practical implication is not that the structure decision does not matter. It is that structure is a second-order lever, and the first-order levers are the ones that make a lender read your file as a bigger, more predictable business: length and consistency of trading history, quality of financials, the state of your ATO position, and whether the numbers you present are current. Operators who spend their energy shopping structure while presenting eighteen-month-old financials are optimising the smaller variable.
The number nobody publishes
Here is the honest limit of the data, and it is the reason a definitive answer to this question does not exist.
The RBA series splits business lending by size and by whether it is residentially secured, fixed or variable. It has no unsecured category at all. The non-bank and fintech unsecured lending that sits at the expensive end of the SME market, the segment this whole comparison turns on, is not broken out in any published series we are aware of.
So anyone quoting you a precise secured-versus-unsecured gap for the Australian market is either extrapolating or making it up. What can be said accurately is narrower and more useful:
- The bank end is measurable, and the security discount there is around half a percentage point.
- The non-bank unsecured end is materially more expensive, commonly by several percentage points and sometimes by a great deal more, but the dispersion is wide and the pricing is set file by file.
- Which means the comparison cannot be run in the abstract. It has to be run on the two offers actually in front of you.
Everything below uses an illustrative unsecured rate to show how the arithmetic behaves. It is an illustration of a mechanism, not a market rate, and your own figures will differ.
Where the crossover actually sits
The received wisdom is that unsecured wins on small, short facilities and secured wins on large, long ones. That is directionally right and the usual thresholds quoted are wrong, including the ones this page used to carry.
The mechanism is simple once stated. The extra cost of going secured is close to fixed. The interest saving scales with both the size of the facility and the length of the term. Valuation, legals and mortgage registration cost roughly the same on a $60,000 facility as on a $600,000 one. So the crossover is not a rule of thumb. It is a curve, and it falls fast as the term extends.
Working it through on an illustrative 6.89 per cent secured rate, being the RBA’s published July 2026 average for new residentially secured small business lending, against an illustrative 15 per cent unsecured rate, with $5,000 of establishment costs on the secured side and a 2 per cent establishment fee on the unsecured side:
| Term | Secured is cheaper on total cost above roughly |
|---|---|
| 6 months | $114,000 |
| 12 months | $76,000 |
| 18 months | $57,000 |
| 24 months | $45,000 |
| 36 months | $32,000 |
| 60 months | $19,000 |
Illustrative only, on the assumptions stated above. Change the assumed unsecured rate or the fee levels and every figure moves.
Two worked rows to show the size of the numbers involved. At a 12-month term:
| Facility, 12 months | Secured, all-in | Unsecured, all-in | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $6,886 | $5,155 | Unsecured cheaper by $1,731 |
| $75,000 | $7,828 | $7,732 | Line ball |
| $100,000 | $8,771 | $10,310 | Secured cheaper by $1,539 |
| $250,000 | $14,428 | $25,775 | Secured cheaper by $11,347 |
And at 36 months, where the picture changes shape entirely:
| Facility, 36 months | Secured, all-in | Unsecured, all-in | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | $10,488 | $13,398 | Secured cheaper by $2,909 |
| $150,000 | $21,465 | $40,193 | Secured cheaper by $18,728 |
| $500,000 | $59,883 | $133,976 | Secured cheaper by $74,093 |
All-in means total interest over the term plus establishment costs, on the stated assumptions. Illustrative only, not a quote.
The genuinely uncertain zone is smaller than usually claimed. It is not “$100,000 to $500,000 over 2 to 5 years”. On these assumptions, anything at 2 years or longer above about $45,000 favours secured on cost by a widening margin. The real contest is short-term facilities under about $100,000, which is exactly the working-capital slot, and there the answer often turns on something other than cost.
The time difference, and when it decides everything
For borrowers comparing structures, the rate gets the attention and the time gap is usually the bigger lever.
- Secured, property-backed: commonly 4 to 8 weeks from application to settlement, driven by valuation lead time, legal preparation, mortgage registration and the lender’s own assessment.
- Secured asset finance: 1 to 3 weeks, since the valuation and security registration are simpler.
- Unsecured cashflow facility: 24 hours to 5 business days for an established business with complete documentation, and faster on some products.
For a refinance with no deadline, six weeks costs nothing and the cost tables above decide it. For a deadline, the comparison changes character completely, because the secured option may not exist inside the window at any price.
The scenarios where that is genuinely true: a stock buy at a discounted wholesale price with a short window; a deposit on a property under contract; equipment that has failed mid-trading; a short-notice chance to acquire a competitor’s inventory or customer list; a working capital bridge against a known but late receivable.
In each of those the question is not which structure is cheaper. It is whether the opportunity is available at all, and what the opportunity is worth against the extra interest. That is a calculation worth doing explicitly rather than by feel: on a $100,000 facility for 12 months, the difference between the two illustrative structures above is about $1,500. Plenty of opportunities clear that bar comfortably. Some do not, and it is worth knowing which one you are looking at.
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What property security costs beyond the rate
Pledging property has costs the headline rate does not show.
Establishment costs. A registered valuation, legal preparation by the lender’s solicitors, often charged to you, and mortgage registration with the state land registry. Several thousand dollars, more on complex commercial property. These are the fixed costs that set the crossover above.
Cross-collateralisation. If the family home secures the business loan, business stress reaches the home. A default on the business borrowing can trigger action against the property, turning a business event into a personal one. Many established operators deliberately structure to avoid this: business borrowings against business security, the home behind the home loan and nothing else.
Refinance friction. Every future move involving that property, refinancing the home, selling it, restructuring the business, requires releasing the security first. The discharge process takes time, sometimes costs money, and occasionally stalls. Property-secured business debt adds friction to every subsequent financial decision touching that asset.
The all moneys clause. Some mortgage documents extend the security to cover any future borrowing you take with the same lender. A property pledged for a $200,000 facility today can stand behind a larger facility three years from now, sometimes without a fresh registration. Ask your commercial lawyer to read the clause and tell you its scope and limits before you sign, not after.
None of these are reasons to avoid secured borrowing. They are reasons to enter it deliberately, knowing what is on the line rather than only the rate you are getting.
What protects you on a business loan, and what does not
This is the section most comparisons skip, and it matters more on the unsecured side because that is where the standard-form contracts live.
Responsible lending does not apply. AFCA states the position directly: lending to a small business is not part of the responsible lending obligations under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, and AFCA does not take the responsible lending provisions of the NCCP Act, the National Credit Code or RG 209 into account when assessing a small business loan complaint. There is no test of unsuitability on a small business loan, and the lender is not required to make the same level of enquiry as on consumer lending. Our guide to the business purpose declaration covers the mechanism that puts your loan on that side of the line.
Three things do apply.
External dispute resolution. Every licensed financial services provider in Australia must be an AFCA member and participate in the AFCA process, and AFCA’s service is free to access with determinations binding on the firm. AFCA defines a small business as an organisation with fewer than 100 employees, with group aggregation applying, and can consider complaints about business finance including loans, lines of credit, overdrafts, commercial bills, hire purchase and leases. Its monetary restriction currently covers credit facilities up to $6,317,000 for small businesses and primary producers.
Statutory conduct standards. When reviewing a small business lending complaint, AFCA applies the obligations in statute, good industry practice and codes of practice. That includes the implied warranty in the ASIC Act that a service will be provided with due care and skill, and the prohibitions on misleading and unconscionable conduct.
Unfair contract terms. The regime covers standard form contracts, which is what almost every unsecured business facility is. A business is covered if it employs fewer than 100 people when the contract is signed, or had turnover under $10 million in the last income year, and for financial products and services the upfront contract price must not exceed $5 million. A term is unfair if it causes a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights, is not reasonably necessary to protect the legitimate interests of the party benefiting from it, and would cause detriment if applied or relied on. A court can declare a term or contract void, vary it, refuse to enforce it, stop the same term appearing in future contracts, and order a refund. A civil penalty regime has applied since October 2023.
Nobody is going to assess whether a business loan is suitable for you. That job is yours. What the law does police is what is written in the contract and how the lender behaves, which is a narrower protection than most borrowers assume they have.
The practical reading: on the unsecured side, read the contract properly, particularly default triggers, fee schedules, and any clause allowing unilateral variation. Those are precisely the terms the unfair contract terms regime exists to police, and ASIC has previously required lenders to change small business loan terms it considered unfair.
The hybrid structure most established operators use
In practice most established operators do not choose one structure. They run both, matched to use case.
- A secured facility for core capital. Premises, plant, major acquisitions, sitting on property-backed or GSA-backed security at the lowest available rate, where the cost tables above are decisive.
- An unsecured line for opportunistic deployment. Working capital, stock buys, short-term opportunities, on something that can move in days. See cashflow loans.
- Asset finance for equipment. Trucks, plant and specialist equipment on dedicated facilities matched to the asset’s working life and the tax position. Our truck and transport finance guide covers that in depth.
The single-facility approach, one large secured loan covering everything, is administratively simpler and produces compromised outcomes. The working capital portion pays a long-term rate it does not need. The equipment portion cannot be sold or refinanced independently. And the security exposure is larger than the borrowing requires.
There is a cost to the hybrid too, and it is worth naming: more facilities means more establishment fees, more covenants to track, and more renewal dates to miss. It earns its keep above roughly the $300,000 total borrowing mark, and below that the simplicity of one facility is often worth more than the optimisation.
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Frequently Asked
Secured vs Unsecured Business Loan FAQs
The questions operators ask most when comparing the two structures.
What is the difference between a secured and unsecured business loan?
A secured business loan is backed by an asset, typically commercial or residential property under a registered mortgage, business assets under a general security agreement, or a single item under a specific charge. An unsecured loan has no fixed asset security; the lender relies on business cashflow and director guarantees instead. Secured facilities generally price lower and take longer to settle. Unsecured facilities settle in days and cost more, and usually still carry a personal guarantee.
How much cheaper is a secured business loan?
At the bank end it is measurable. On RBA figures for July 2026, new small business loans averaged 7.44 per cent and the residentially secured subset averaged 6.89 per cent, a difference of 0.55 percentage points. Because residentially secured is a subset of the total rather than its opposite, the gap against non-residentially-secured lending is wider than that. Non-bank unsecured pricing is not published in any RBA series, and it is generally several percentage points higher with wide dispersion, so a precise market-wide gap cannot honestly be quoted.
At what loan size does secured become worth it?
It depends on the term more than the size, because the extra cost of going secured is close to fixed while the interest saving scales. On illustrative assumptions of 6.89 per cent secured against 15 per cent unsecured, with $5,000 of secured establishment costs and a 2 per cent unsecured establishment fee, secured is cheaper on total cost above roughly $114,000 at 6 months, $76,000 at 12 months, $45,000 at 24 months and $32,000 at 36 months. Change the assumed unsecured rate or the fees and those figures move, so run it on your actual offers.
What is a general security agreement?
A GSA is a charge a lender takes over the business’s general assets, including debtors, inventory, equipment and other business property, registered on the Personal Property Securities Register. It gives the lender a claim over the asset base without requiring a mortgage over a specific property, which makes it common for asset-rich businesses without spare property equity. It sits between property security and unsecured on both price and settlement time.
Do I have to give a personal guarantee on an unsecured business loan?
Almost always, from directors and significant shareholders. It is the main reason the word unsecured is misleading: the facility is not backed by a registered charge over an asset, but it is backed by you personally. If the business defaults, the lender has a path to recover against your personal position. Treat a guarantee as a real financial commitment and, on anything substantial, have your solicitor explain its scope before you sign it.
How long does each structure take to settle?
A secured property-backed business loan commonly takes 4 to 8 weeks, driven by valuation lead time, legal preparation, mortgage registration and the lender’s assessment. Secured asset finance is faster at roughly 1 to 3 weeks. An unsecured cashflow facility is typically 24 hours to 5 business days for an established business with complete documentation. Where there is a genuine deadline, the secured option may simply not exist inside the window, which changes the decision from a cost question to an availability one.
What is cross-collateralisation and why does it matter?
It means one asset securing more than one borrowing, most commonly the family home standing behind both the home loan and a business facility. It matters because it connects business risk to personal assets: a default on the business borrowing can trigger action against the home. It also adds friction to every later decision involving that property, since refinancing or selling requires releasing the security first. Many established operators deliberately keep business borrowings against business security for exactly this reason.
What is an “all moneys” clause?
It is a provision in some mortgage documents extending the security to cover any future borrowing you take with the same lender. A property pledged for one facility today can end up standing behind a larger one later, sometimes without a fresh registration. It is not automatically unreasonable, but it materially changes what you have put on the line. Ask your commercial lawyer to identify the clause and explain its scope and limits before signing.
Are unsecured fintech business loans regulated?
Not by the consumer credit regime, and that is the important part. AFCA states that lending to a small business is not part of the responsible lending obligations under the NCCP Act, and that it does not apply those provisions, the National Credit Code or RG 209 when assessing a small business loan complaint. There is no unsuitability test. What does apply is external dispute resolution through AFCA, which every licensed provider must belong to, the ASIC Act implied warranty of due care and skill and its prohibitions on misleading and unconscionable conduct, and the unfair contract terms regime, which covers the standard form contracts these facilities use.
Does my business qualify for unfair contract term protections?
For financial products and services, a business is covered if it employs fewer than 100 people at the time the contract is signed, or had a turnover of less than $10 million in the last income year, and the upfront contract price does not exceed $5 million. The contract must be a standard form contract, which most unsecured business facilities are. A term is unfair where it causes a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights, is not reasonably necessary to protect the legitimate interests of the party it benefits, and would cause detriment if applied. A civil penalty regime has applied since October 2023.
Can I take a complaint about a business loan to AFCA?
In many cases yes. AFCA defines a small business as an organisation with fewer than 100 employees, with an exclusion where the business is part of a group employing 100 or more. It can consider complaints about business finance including loans, lines of credit, overdrafts, commercial bills, hire purchase and leases, and its monetary restriction currently covers credit facilities up to $6,317,000 for small businesses and primary producers. The service is free and determinations bind the financial firm. Note that AFCA will assess the complaint against conduct standards rather than against responsible lending obligations.
Can I refinance from unsecured to secured later?
Frequently, and it is a common and sensible sequence: take the unsecured facility to meet a deadline, then refinance onto secured terms once the property work can be completed without time pressure. The cost tables above are what make it worth doing, since the saving compounds over the remaining term. Check the unsecured facility’s early repayment terms before you rely on the plan, because some short-term products charge the full contracted cost regardless of when you repay.
The bottom line
Four things, in order of how much they should change what you do.
Security is a second-order lever. The published security discount on new small business lending is around half a percentage point. The gap between small and large business borrowers is nearly two points and has barely moved in seven years. If you want a materially better rate, the work is in making your file read like a bigger, more predictable business, not in shopping structure.
The crossover is a curve, not a threshold. Secured establishment costs are close to fixed and the interest saving scales, so on the illustrative assumptions above secured wins above roughly $76,000 at 12 months and roughly $32,000 at 3 years. The genuinely contested zone is short-term facilities under about $100,000.
Time is the tiebreaker, and it is worth costing. Where a deadline is real, the secured option may not exist at any price, and the question becomes what the opportunity is worth against the extra interest. On a $100,000 facility for a year that difference was about $1,500 on our figures. Some opportunities clear that easily. Say which one yours is.
Nobody will assess whether the loan suits you. There is no unsuitability test on small business lending and no responsible lending obligation behind it. What you do have is AFCA, the ASIC Act conduct standards, and the unfair contract terms regime, which polices what is in the contract rather than whether you should have signed it. Read the default triggers and the variation clauses yourself.
The comparison cannot be settled in the abstract, because the single most important input, what unsecured actually costs in your segment, is not published anywhere. It can only be settled on the two offers in front of you, which is a short conversation rather than a research project.
Joseph Sukkar
Joseph founded Intellect Finance in Penrith in 2005 and has worked in Australian finance for more than 25 years, structuring business borrowings from small unsecured cashflow lines through to property-backed commercial facilities. Commercial and specialist applications are led by Charbel, who handles complex income, SMSF and higher-value commercial files day to day. Intellect Finance charges clients no fee on any loan type. More about the team, or see our commercial loans page.
Sources
Reserve Bank of Australia, Statistical Table F7 Business Lending Rates and the Lenders’ Interest Rates page, data published 7 September 2026 for the month of July 2026, sourced from APRA and the RBA, for the rates on outstanding and new small, medium and large business lending, the residentially secured small business series, and the historical December figures used in the trend table. Lenders’ interest rates are published 5 business days after the end of each month. rba.gov.au
Australian Financial Complaints Authority, Small businesses with a financial complaint, for AFCA’s definition of a small business as an organisation with fewer than 100 employees and the related group exclusion, the categories of business finance complaints AFCA can consider, the requirement that all licensed financial services providers be AFCA members and participate in the process, the binding nature of determinations, the application of the ASIC Act implied warranty of due care and skill and the prohibitions on misleading and unconscionable conduct, and the statements that lending to a small business is not part of the responsible lending obligations under the NCCP Act, that AFCA does not apply those provisions, the National Credit Code or RG 209 to small business loan complaints, and that there is no test of unsuitability on a small business loan. afca.org.au
Australian Financial Complaints Authority, AFCA’s compensation caps and monetary limits adjusted, for the monetary restriction covering credit facilities not exceeding $6,317,000 for small businesses and primary producers, effective 1 January 2024, and the requirement to adjust monetary limits every three years. afca.org.au
ASIC, Unfair contract term protections for small businesses, for the coverage test of fewer than 100 employees at the time the contract is signed or turnover under $10 million in the last income year, the $5 million upfront price cap for financial products and services, the requirement that the contract be a standard form contract, the three-limb test for unfairness, the remedies available to a court including declaring a term void, varying the contract, refusing to enforce a term, preventing similar terms in future contracts and ordering a refund, and the civil penalty regime commencing October 2023. asic.gov.au
Important disclosures, general advice warning and licensing
General information only. This article is general information only and does not constitute financial, credit, legal or tax advice. It does not take your personal or business circumstances into account. Before acting on any information here, consider whether it is appropriate to your objectives, financial situation and needs.
About the RBA figures. The rates quoted are averages published by the Reserve Bank of Australia in Statistical Table F7, compiled with APRA, for the periods stated. They are market averages across reporting lenders, not quotes, not offers, and not indicative of what any particular borrower would be offered. The series reports lending by business size and separately identifies residentially secured small business lending; residentially secured is a subset of the small business total rather than its complement. The series does not contain an unsecured category, and non-bank unsecured business lending is not separately identified in it. Published figures are revised from time to time. Figures reviewed on 10 September 2026.
Illustrative calculations. Intellect Finance publishes no interest rates and makes no offer of finance on this page. The 15 per cent unsecured rate, the $5,000 secured establishment cost and the 2 per cent unsecured establishment fee used in the comparison tables are illustrative assumptions chosen to demonstrate how the arithmetic behaves, not market rates or fee levels. The repayment and total-cost figures are calculated on a principal-and-interest basis, monthly in arrears, over the stated terms, and ignore GST, ongoing account fees, insurance, early repayment costs, redraw and any drawdown timing. The crossover figures are highly sensitive to the assumed unsecured rate and fee levels: change either and every figure in those tables changes. Your own comparison will differ and should be run on actual written offers.
Regulatory framework. Credit provided wholly or predominantly for business purposes is not regulated by the National Credit Code, so the responsible lending obligations in Chapter 3 of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 do not apply to it, and there is no unsuitability assessment. Best Interests Duty applies to mortgage brokers in relation to credit assistance provided on regulated consumer credit and does not extend to predominantly business purpose lending. Whether particular credit is regulated depends on the facts and is a question for the lender and, where relevant, your solicitor or accountant.
AFCA and unfair contract terms. The descriptions of AFCA’s jurisdiction and of the unfair contract terms regime summarise published guidance as reviewed on 10 September 2026 and do not set out every rule, exclusion or threshold. Eligibility, monetary limits and coverage tests change, and AFCA adjusts its monetary limits periodically. Whether a particular complaint can be considered, or a particular term is unfair, depends on the facts and is not a matter this page can determine. Legal questions about a guarantee, a security document or a contract term belong with your solicitor.
Lender policies vary and change. Rates, fees, security requirements, maximum ratios, documentation, settlement timeframes and credit policy differ between lenders, are subject to each lender’s own assessment, and change without notice. This page names no lenders. No broker can guarantee loan approval, a particular interest rate, or a timeframe.
What we charge you. Nothing, on any loan type. No arrangement fee for residential, commercial, corporate, asset, SMSF or personal lending, no fee for complex or specialist lending, and no clawback recovery fee if a facility is discharged early. Lenders pay us a commission on settlement, disclosed to you in writing in our Credit Guide before we provide credit assistance. This statement describes Intellect Finance only, and other brokers’ arrangements are set out in their own Credit Guides.
About the reviews shown. The reviews displayed on this page are genuine reviews published by clients on Intellect Finance’s Google Business Profile, shown live via a third-party reviews widget. They reflect those individuals’ own experiences and are not a promise of any particular outcome.
Other professionals. Tax questions to your accountant or a registered tax agent. Guarantees, security documents, all moneys clauses and contract terms to your solicitor. If you are having difficulty meeting repayments, contact your lender’s hardship team, and free independent help is available from the National Debt Helpline on 1800 007 007.
Intellect Finance Pty Ltd holds Australian Credit Licence 390611 and is a member of the MFAA and AFCA. Lending criteria, fees and terms apply. All applications are subject to lender assessment and approval. Article checked 10 September 2026.
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