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PLAN Australia has welcomed SME lender Prospa to its panel, enabling PLAN members to offer their clients Prospa’s small-business loans and lines of credit.
Under the new partnership, brokers aggregating under PLAN Australia will be able to offer their clients Prospa’s product suite, which includes business loans ranging from $5,000 to $300,000 and a revolving line of credit up to $100,000.
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Speaking of the new agreement, Anja Pannek, CEO of PLAN Australia, said: “With an increasing number of small-business owners seeking the expertise of brokers to provide funding solutions, it’s important that we maintain a diversified lender panel to continue to meet their needs.
“I’m delighted to announce PLAN Australia’s partnership with Prospa, which will enable our members to offer a wider range of products and services suited to their small-business clients.”
As well as joining the aggregator’s lender panel, Prospa said it will also support PLAN Australia brokers with marketing and education resources for small-business lending, available through its Partner Portal.
Alex Brgudac, Prospa’s head of partnerships, welcomed the PLAN agreement, stating: “We’re thrilled to partner with PLAN Australia and to be able to support even more of the 2.3 million small-business owners across Australia.
“Brokers are key to what we do at Prospa and play a crucial role helping their clients understand the different funding options available to them. Currently, more than half of Australians use a broker when applying for a home loan, and we see that same opportunity in small-business lending.
“Together we can make a big difference to the small-business economy,” Mr Brgudac said.
Prospa appoints interim CFO
The SME lender also recently announced that it has appointed an interim chief financial officer (CFO).
On Tuesday (28 January), Peter Loosmore joined Prospa Group Ltd as its interim CFO. Mr Loosmore will be stepping into the role of CFO until a permanent replacement is found for the outgoing CFO, Edoardo Bigazzi. Mr Bigazzi is set to leave Prospa in March to “pursue other opportunities”.
Mr Loosmore, who has previously served as CFO at Westpac Financial Services, St.George Bank (Retail Bank) and Suncorp Life, is a specialist in helping companies during period of complex change and has recently undertaken various interim assignments at ANZ Bank, AMP, BNP Paribas, NSW State Super and iCare.
He has previously been a director of finance, asset management, at Rothschild, and a management consultant at Deloitte.
The two Prospa CEOs, Greg Moshal and Beau Bertoli, welcomed Mr Loosmore to the company, particularly noting his “extensive listed-company experience”.
“Peter’s significant financial services experience and deep understanding of financial portfolio management will be of great benefit to Prospa, as we enter the next phase of our evolution as a listed company and execute our strategy to help small businesses in Australia and New Zealand to grow and prosper,” Mr Moshal said.
Meanwhile, Mr Bertoli thanked outgoing CFO Edoardo Bigazzi for his service, stating: “Ed has been a valued member of our executive team and has made a significant contribution to Prospa over the past four years, stewarding the risk and finance functions from start-up to scale-up and being instrumental in building Prospa’s funding platform.
“The board and the team at Prospa wish him well in his future endeavours.”
Prospa’s group head of capital management, Raj Bhat, will now take responsibility for financial planning and analysis and yield management of all capital products across the group.
[Related: Government launches bushfire loans, grants for SMEs]
