{"id":37302,"date":"2023-10-20T14:49:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/commonwealth-bank-and-indigenous-business-australia-partner-to-help-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-entrepreneurs-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:49:17","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:49:17","slug":"commonwealth-bank-and-indigenous-business-australia-partner-to-help-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-entrepreneurs-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/commonwealth-bank-and-indigenous-business-australia-partner-to-help-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-entrepreneurs-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Commonwealth Bank and Indigenous Business Australia partner to help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entrepreneurs &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"445\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/l_aboriginal-art-445.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_aboriginal-art-445\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Indigenous Business Australia and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia have formed a partnership to provide indigenous Australians with a micro-enterprise loan and finance package.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Community Business Finance package will provide eligible Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people wanting to start or grow a business with a package of banking products and services specific to their individual needs, the IBA says in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIBA and Commonwealth Bank share a commitment to supporting the establishment and growth of a vibrant indigenous business sector and to improve the economic self-sufficiency of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons, with IBA customers enjoying a business survivability rate of 90% after one year, 79% after two years and 68% after three years,\u201d IBA chief executive Chris Fry says in the statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Under the initiative, Commonwealth Bank will provide a package of financial products and services up to $50,000, with IBA helping to source customers and providing business planning and mentoring services to help eligible customers establish, develop and grow their business.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fry says five indigenous entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the new product so far.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Businesses have included a health retreat, art broker and fish and chip shop.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kirsti McQueen, IBA\u2019s general manager \u2013 enterprises, told <i>StartupSmart<\/i> the partnership aimed to address a gap in business ownership in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She says about 15% of the wider Australian community are self-employed, while only about 6% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people worked for themselves.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen closing the broader disadvantage gap we want to see people participate in the broader economy,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>McQueen says the partnership with the Commonwealth Bank aimed to help clients who may not be \u201cbank ready\u201d, such as those who did not have a credit history or equity to contribute to a loan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Indigenous Business Australia and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia have formed a partnership to provide indigenous Australians with a micro-enterprise<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}