Credabl eyes healthy gains from healing professionals

Specialist lender Credabl is targeting medical, dental and veterinary professionals.

Credabl CEO Stafford Hamilton. Picture: Hollie Adams.

Specialist lender Credabl is targeting a bigger slice of the multi-billion-dollar market for loans to medical, dental, veterinary and accounting professionals after securing a new warehouse funding facility.

The company — which was founded two years ago and has written about $300 million in loans — has locked in a $100m warehouse facility with ANZ to help it accelerate lending.

The ANZ facility adds to warehouse funding lines from a listed investment management firm and institutional investors, among others.

Credabl chief Stafford Hamilton said professionals in the company’s target market were often just starting their own practice and required specialist business or personal loans.

“They have a very unique creditworthiness. It really empowers us,” he said, noting the firm drew on technology, digitisation and had a track record of understanding what made a successful professional practice.

“We don’t think that need will get met by the mainstream … there are 100,000 or so people that we are targeting.”

Mr Hamilton previously co-foundedInvestec, now Bank of Queensland’s specialist bankwhich provides lending and other banking services to a range of medical professions and students. He also had a stint at National Australia Bank’s Medfin, which still operates in the space.

While Mr Hamilton has experience in the sector, Credabl has several rivals that will protect their patches.

Bank of Queensland scaled up in the industry in 2014 when it purchased Investec Bank Australia, including its professional finance arm.

Medfin, which sits within NAB Health, is also an established player. Its website says Medfin provides more than $1 billion in new finance annually to 20,000 customers.

Most of the large lenders also cater for finance to medical professionals with policies within their commercial and private banking arms.

Former Investec stalwart and Credabl chairman Geoff Levy believes the company’s ability to take a “more data-rich view” of an individual’s future earnings capacity through proprietary technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning stands it in good stead.

“We’ve taken this niche class out of the common denominator … we have people that have been looking after doctors for 15 to 20 years,” he said. “Banks are effectively tied by regulation.”

Credabl’s moves to step up its lending come amid heated debate over the ability of small and medium businesses to access finance, particularly in a post-Hayne royal commission landscape.

Other participants in the broader business market including new bank Judo are seeking to chip away at the big banks’ market share in business lending.

Mr Levy, who is also the chairman of Monash Private Capital and several ASX-listed companies including property house Cromwell, said Credabl would likely look at a liquidity event within the next decade but avoid public markets if possible.

“It (public listing) can sometimes drive the wrong behaviour,” he added.