Reserve Bank of Australia Assistant Governor tells UNSW about the difficulties entrepreneurs have raising finance
Published on the 14 Dec 2017
Christopher Kent, the Assistant Governor (Financial Markets) at the Reserve Bank of Australia has told the UNSW Business School Australasian Finance and Banking Conference that "lenders have indicated that at least three-quarters of their small business lending is collateralised, and they only have a limited appetite for unsecured lending."
In a speech on the availability of business finance, he told delegates, UNSW staff and students, along with globally renowned banking and finance authorities, that "there are a number of reasons why entrepreneurs find it difficult to provide sufficient collateral for business borrowing via home equity. They may not actually own a home, or have much equity in their home if they are relatively young. Similarly, they may not have sufficient spare home equity if they've already borrowed against their home to establish a business and now want to expand their business."
An initiative of the Institute of Global Finance and School of Banking & Finance at the UNSW Business School, the Australasian Finance and Banking Conference debated key issues, share research and discuss disruption in the global financial system
The UNSW Business School's Professor Fariborz Moshirian, the Director of the Institute of Global Finance, said when he opened the conference "It's great to have the RBA in attendance, and to have them enlighten and inform us, and share their insights, which have always been so important to this conference. The Australasian Finance and Banking Conference is the most prestigious finance conference in the Asia-Pacific region."
Also speaking was Dr Augusto López-Claros, Director of the World Bank Global Indicators Group, who discussed income inequality, and evaluation of key social indicators. "When we look at poverty and income redistribution, extreme poverty has been reduced by a large amount over the past couple of decades," he said.
"For example, the number of people living below $1.90 a day has been sharply reduced. That's essentially a Chinese story – less so in India. However, poverty below $3.10 hasn't been reduced quite so much. There were 2.8 billion people below that level in 1998. There are still 2 billion below it in 2017."
He has hopes for two goals for 2030; "To end extreme poverty, and promote shared prosperity."
Dr Augusto López-Claros discusses the themes of the conference on Radio National