Forging deeper ties with high-performing brokers key to growth, says Dynamoney CEO Brett Thomas
On day one of taking over as chief executive of Dynamoney, Brett Thomas got to work on getting to know the people and processes that make the alternative lender to Australian SMEs tick.
For Thomas, understanding the organisation’s inner workings was key to shaping his strategy for the months ahead.
That was less than a month ago, but, Thomas told MPA, day one already “feels like a while ago now”.
That’s to be expected given the litany of deep dives and discussions Thomas undoubtedly sat through in the opening stretch.
Under his new leadership, “the mission to be the go-to SME lender in Australia, to kind of lead that space, hasn’t changed”, Thomas said, adding that establishing clear, customer-centric expectations was a priority as he began plotting a course toward a greater share of the SME lending market.
When two worlds collide
Thomas brings years of experience from multinational finance giants, most recently at Wells Fargo, where he led commercial distribution finance across Australia and New Zealand.
“Coming from large global financial institutions and a large global bank more recently, those businesses and those environments are very strong on credit risk management, process and governance,” noted Thomas. “There's a lot of rigor, which you need to be a large global bank – that's critical to be able to operate a business.”
It sounds like a world away from a comparatively niche – albeit growing – name in Australia’s alternative lending scene, but “for us, there's a really good opportunity to blend the best of both worlds”, Thomas said.
He sees an opportunity to combine his deep knowledge of credit risk management and governance with the flexibility of being a fintech innovator.
“You've got the best of both worlds that you can bring together,” said Thomas of Dynamoney’s value proposition. “You've got a huge amount of process and rigour and governance within the business, but it’s not held back by the kind of the constraints that you might have in some of those larger businesses.”
“It really comes down to decision making. You can make the right decision quickly, get everybody in a room and do it, rather than going through a couple of weeks of process."
Under Thomas’ leadership, Dynamoney intends to double down on the sectors it currently serves, be that manufacturing, logistics, transport, industrial, or, increasingly, agriculture.
“We also see an opportunity in supporting the mortgage brokers that are looking to diversify into asset finance,” Thomas said. “That's a part of the business that's definitely growing. But it really comes back to product design, making sure that the products are fit for purpose, the credit appetite's right, and it supports those segments."
No growth without brokers
Dynamoney’s cylinders were already firing when Thomas took over last months – the group reported a 50% growth to its loan book over the previous 12 months, supported by wholesale lending partnerships with two major Australian banks.
From Thomas’ observations, this growth is thanks to “very strong relationships with the broker network, particularly the key larger partners that we work with”. He sees virtue in having transparent product offerings, fast cycle times/time to yes and ensuring Dynamoney’s portals “are as good as they can be for customers to interact with us”.
Work is also going into gathering data and insights to make sure Dynamoney is properly servicing the segments its marketing to.
“In the longer term, from my perspective, we'll build out a broader strategy… It's going to be very consistent with what we've done historically. It's really just scaling the business and growing into those spaces,” Thomas said.
When pressed further on how he intends to steer Dynamoney to greater SME lending market share, Thomas reiterated that the strategy “is definitely to continue deepening those broker relationships”.
“There’s a lot more we can do there, particularly with those high-performing partners and those that are getting into that bracket… there’s a lot of upside in those relationships that we can build out,” he added.
With so much competition from not just other challenger SME lenders, but the big banks too, maintaining these relationships “is going to be really key”, Thomas said. “We have deep broker relationships today that we'll continue to build. That's very important to this business… We add value to (brokers’) businesses and we support their customers.”
On the product side, “it’s really refining that product suite to make sure that it delivers value for customers. I think it does today, but we can do more there to make those products even better”,” Thomas said.
He also believes a lot more can be done on the technology side “to make sure the customer experience is as good as it can be”.
Productivity challenges continue to batter Australian SMEs, making conditions tough in Dynamoney’s specialist field. Yet with 60% of SMEs planning to invest in their businesses over the next five months, the sector is far from short on opportunity.
