With the SME Loan Recovery Scheme closing at the end of June, Australian small businesses will have fewer possibilities to finance themselves at a time when many factors are weighing on them.
The discontinuation of the SME Loan Recovery Scheme, aimed at providing relief to the impact of COVID-19 by supplying government-supported small business loans, comes around the same time as local and global instability is dominating headlines.
From both global and domestic inflation impacting monetary policy in almost every country, technology companies bleeding into lower valuations, and startups halting their growth or even firing staff, to the strict COVID-19 regime in China leading to more disruptions in the supply chain, the war in Ukraine, and the Australian election and its aftermath, there is a lot of uncertainty in the air. And when there’s uncertainty, growth is hindered.