Founded in 2018, Avenue Bank offers banking solutions for Australian businesses and specialises in providing bank guarantees for SMEs looking to secure commercial leases from landlords.
In this context, instead of the client paying a bond to the landlord – equivalent to nine to 12 months of rent – they instead present a bank guarantee, ensuring that should the deal fall through, the guarantee will cover the financial losses.
However, it’s not uncommon for paper-based guarantees to endure a four to six-week process, often to the detriment of time-constrained businesses.
Avenue Bank claims to have digitised this process, saying its applications take only around five minutes with final decisions issued within 24 hours.
Australian Financial Review reports that with its new unrestricted banking licence, the bank plans to expand its suite of cashflow solutions, including adding a drawdown option to enable clients to access working capital through their deposits, as well as additional tools allowing landlords to better manage claims made against guarantees.
Avenue Bank also plans to fuel other areas of its expansion following its Series D round this year, which secured the firm an additional USD 17.7 million.
In March 2023, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority asked banks to report on transactions involving crypto assets and to provide updates. This came after multiple collapses in the banking sector such as Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Credit Suisse.
SVB collapsed in the US after failing to raise USD 2.2 billion to plug a loss from the sale of assets, mainly US government bonds, that were affected by higher interest rates. These developments prompted a run on the bank in the US and sparked investor fears about the general state of the banking sector. These measures are part of the APRA’s increased supervision of the banking sector.
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