Nailing your business’s trade terms

“Shift then takes payment from the client without any risk for the hardware store.”

Forced into banker role

With an onboarding process that takes a matter of minutes, Shift looks at a registrant’s accounts in real time and can pay out suppliers to a maximum of $500,000 the same day.

Jamie Osborn, CEO at Shift, says the service is unique in this space, providing a fix for cash-strapped businesses that are “effectively acting as lenders to business.”

“There was just no intermediary in that market,” Osborn says. “It was businesses trading with each other and suppliers acting almost as a bank for the buyer. It struck us as unusual,” says Osborn.

“If you actually totalled up all those receivables, the SMEs themselves are the fifth largest bank in the country. Their core competency isn’t underwriting, it’s not sizing limits, it’s not collecting payments.

“It’s none of those things and yet they’re forced into this market through no fault of their own.”

Originally established as GetCapital in 2014, the company rebranded as Shift in October 2021. Since its inception, the company has been growing at a rate of at least 50 per cent a year and in the past year – helping businesses navigate yet another year of unexpected change – at 60 per cent.

Debt instrument sharpened

For LoRicco and HBT’s members using the digital platform, the ability to access finance in this way “is almost too good to be true.”

“Back in the day, you could always factor your debt but it was very expensive to do it,” he says.

“A factoring company would charge up to 7 per cent of your turnover for the benefit of doing it and there was still no guarantee – they wouldn’t take on all your debt because there were no credit checks in those days.”

This clunky and somewhat blunt solution has been replaced by technology that can drill down into accounts and extract credit scores in real time. This is freeing up businesses, allowing them to take back control of their cash flow and minimise risk.

“Shift make it as seamless as possible,” he says. “When you’re running a business – and I know this for a fact because I’ve done it – you’ve got blinkers on and you’re too busy pedalling hard.”

Any solution, therefore, needs to work immediately and without causing interruptions.

“You don’t want a blockage that stops the whole process and takes your focus off running your business.

“Shift does the opposite: it actually provides you with the focus you need by taking away the stress of trade terms, allowing you to concentrate on actually growing your business, getting more clients in and servicing your customers … it’s what it’s all about.”