During the past week I have spoken to several small medium business owners who are terrified that they are set to lose their business because banks are still charging up to 9% interest on overdrafts to small medium businesses while also refusing to loan them additional money that will help them manage the economic downturn.
One has to seriously question whether the current Federal Government actually understands small medium business and that right now thousands of SMB organisations are starved of cash because of high interest rates and a refusal by banks to loan money to SMB organisations.
Do they actually realise that the mainstream Banks in Australia are still charging up to 8 or 9% interest on business overdrafts to SMB organisations of which there are more than 2 million small businesses in Australia employing approximately 4.5 million people.
And if those businesses start falling over it will create a much bigger problem than whatever the decline in the automotive or construction industries will have on the economy.
Small business in Australia has a total capitalised worth of $4.3 trillion 4 times that of the Australian stock exchange. Small business is a very important sector of the Australian economy.
