Small business

The average interest rate on an outstanding variable-rate smaller loan to a small or medium business sits around 6.0 per cent, against roughly 5.0 per cent for larger business loans and 4.0 per cent for loans to large companies. Most of that gap is about security, not size.

Strip back any card transaction and you find three distinct charges stacked inside what the acquirer bills as a single merchant fee.

Construction crews using Sitemate's Dashpivot are reporting site paperwork that took 90 minutes now finishing in under 10, the Sydney company says, as its Storm AI agent rolls out.

Sendle is getting a second life. McKenna Worldwide Services has bought the collapsed parcel brand from liquidators and wants the small-business shipping service running again by September.

AI answer engines including ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Claude select sources using retrieval-augmented generation, authority signals and structured content. Businesses that optimise for these factors earn more citations.

Australian SME retainers for SEO run from AUD 500 to over AUD 10,000 per month in 2026, with Sydney businesses paying 10 to 20 per cent more than those in smaller cities.

Indian-born founders are starting more than half of all new businesses in Sydney's west. The data tells a story about migration, entrepreneurship, and a region finally getting its due.