Workspace by Black VC · Canberra
For founders & business owners

Be the deal banks say yes to.

How lenders really assess a business — and the small things that get good ones declined.

Presented by
George Popadalis · Black Mountain Financial
Commercial finance
Canberra · ACL 570391
01 · Why me
Why me · why I care

A career spent supporting better outcomes.

Westpac2007–2010
Lending & credit applications — how banks actually assess and decide.
Telstra · Citi2010–2018
Customer experience, complaints & QA — getting outcomes right when things go wrong.
Citi · BI2014–2018
Business intelligence & reporting — reading the data to find risk and fix it.
Vasco Pay · NovattiFintech
Senior product manager (SMB) — building the solutions, not just using them.
Fetch · Lending Assoc.Lending
Self-employed, complex & business borrowers — the deals that don't fit a box.
Black Mountain FinancialToday
All of it — on your side of the desk.

Tech to finance — building solutions at each step, to bring clarity, efficiency and transparency to my clients.

Qualified Grad. Dip. Financial Planning Certified Fund Manager Finance Broker Member, Australian Property Institute SAS Programming Justice of the Peace
02 · The reframe
The thing nobody tells you

A "no" is rarely about your business.

It's almost always about how the deal was presented. Banks decline good businesses every week — not because the numbers don't work, but because the submission never answered the questions the credit team was always going to ask.

03 · The four C's
How lenders actually decide

It always comes down to four C's.

01 · Character

Who are you — and have you done this before?

Track record, experience and credit history. Time in your industry, your reputation, whether past debts were repaid. Not personality — credibility.

02 · Capacity

Can the business service the debt?

Cash flow that covers repayments with headroom — and how resilient it is: customer concentration, key-supplier risk and seasonality.

03 · Collateral

What's securing it?

Property, cash, equipment or receivables that back the loan — assessed on value and quality. Not needed for unsecured, but it sharpens the deal.

04 · Capital

What have you got behind you?

Your overall position — assets, liabilities, net worth, liquidity and your own contribution. Skin in the game, and a fallback if things tighten.

04 · Risk analysis
Risk analysis

Then we map the risk.

The four C's are the frame — this is the risk we actually grade inside them.

01

Supplier risk

How dependent you are on key suppliers — and what happens if one falls over.

02

Market risk

Industry conditions, demand, competition, and where the cycle is.

03

Supply-chain risk

Lead times, fragility and single points of failure in how you deliver.

04

Financial concentration

Revenue or margin leaning on a few customers or products.

05

Operational concentration

Key people, sites or systems the business can't run without.

06

Funding concentration

Reliance on one lender or facility — and the refinance risk in it.

05 · Why good ones get declined
Same business · different outcome

Why good businesses get declined.

06 · The fix
The difference that funds the deal

Present a credit case — not a loan application.

A loan application
  • Raw financials, handed over
  • "Please assess this"
  • Questions answered after they're asked
  • One lender · hope for the best
A credit case
  • Benchmarked vs your industry
  • Earnings normalised, serviceability shown
  • Risks pre-empted and graded
  • Matched to the right lender's appetite
07 · The engine
How we ensure quality & speed

Every deal runs the same engine.

Expertise gets you part of the way — consistency is what gets deals approved, fast. We don't eyeball it. Every submission runs our benchmarking & risk engine, so the credit case is complete, consistent and quick — every time.

01 · Connect

Live financials in

Link via the ATO or Xero (optional) — current numbers, no chasing paperwork or stale statements.

02 · Benchmark

Measured vs your industry

Compared to IBISWorld industry data, earnings normalised — an objective read, not an opinion.

03 · Grade

Risk, scored

Stress-tested and risk-graded — measured, not assumed. The same rigour on every file.

04 · Package

Credit-ready memo

Built to answer the lender's questions up front — which is exactly what makes it fast.

08 · Connected platform
Our connected platform

Plugged into the data that decides.

The engine isn't a spreadsheet — it's wired into the same data a lender (and a smart business) relies on.

Industry data

IBISWorld Australia

Benchmark any business against its industry — the objective baseline behind every read.

Tax · provisionally-approved DSP

ATO

An approved-pathway Digital Service Provider, plus the ATO's own small-business benchmarks.

Property & credit · in development

Cotality

Full API across residential, commercial & construction — valuations, plus company credit reporting to vet new debtors before you extend credit.

Accounting

Xero

Streamlined onboarding, early cashflow-risk flags, and debtors cross-referenced against industry performance.

09 · Be bankable
Do this before you ask

Three things to do before you ask for finance.

01

Clean, current numbers

Entity-clear and reconciled — last two years plus year-to-date. If you can't explain a line, a lender won't fund it.

02

Know your serviceability story

In plain English: what services the debt, with what headroom. Connect the numbers before someone else has to.

03

Match the lender to the deal

The right appetite turns "too hard" into "approved". One decline is a lender mismatch, not a verdict.

10 · It works
Same deal · re-presented

Presentation changes the outcome.

Re-pricing · specialised asset

Priced for risk it didn't have.

A bank priced a $20M+ facility as a risky exposure. Re-presented as the asset-backed lend it was — line fee cut 0.75% (1.8% → 1.05%), in 72 hours.

Development · on exception

Funded below the floor.

A 3-townhouse Canberra infill — below a major bank's usual ~$10M dev minimum. Approved on exception, no presale.

Growth · young business

Declined for a card. Funded for growth.

A young business turning over $10M+ in year one — knocked back by its own bank for a credit card. We secured an overdraft, a growth facility and a $3M security line for property.

Anonymised to protect client confidentiality · every deal is assessed on its own merits · outcomes vary.

11 · What we fund
What we can help you fund

Funding for wherever you're at.

Cashflow

Working capital & overdrafts

Bridge the gap between doing the work and getting paid.

Growth

Expansion funding

Fund the next stage — stock, people, new sites.

Assets

Equipment & asset finance

Gear, vehicles and fit-out — financed, not drawn from cash.

Property

Commercial property

Buy the premises you rent — owner-occupier or investment.

Acquisition

Buy a business

Acquisitions and partner buyouts, funded on the deal.

Development

Development & construction

Land, build and residual stock — including past the majors' caps.

12 · How we help
How we help

More than placing a loan.

Strategy

Debt strategy & structuring

The right capital, shaped to fit the plan — not an off-the-shelf product.

Analysis

Benchmark & risk

Every deal credit-ready before a lender sees it.

Lenders

Lender matching

100+ lenders — the right appetite, not a scattergun of applications.

Restructure

Restructure & refinance

Fix what was set up wrong, or sharpen the pricing.

Review

Ongoing review

Keep the facility aligned as the business grows.

Honesty

Straight answers

What's fundable, what isn't, and what it'll really take.

13 · Beyond funding
Business advisory

We help with the business — not just the money.

Plans

Business & funding plans

Startup or established — the plan, and the funding plan behind it.

Feasibility

Feasibilities

Property development, new ventures and acquisitions — does it stack up?

M&A

Mergers & acquisitions

Buy, sell or merge — structured, assessed and funded.

Profile

Capability packages

Company profiles & capability statements that win the work.

Start-up

Starting a business

Set up right, with the right experts — without leaving your desk.

Improve

Business improvement

An annual health-check, or fix a problem and lift performance.

14 · The takeaway
If you take one thing

"Too hard" usually means the wrong lender — not a bad deal.

Going to ask a bank, or already had a no? Get a second read from someone who's sat on the credit side. Grab me after — or anytime.

George Popadalis
Principal · 02 6188 9849 · info@blackmountainfinancial.com.au
Black Mountain Financial
blackmountainfinancial.com.au · ACL 570391