FORMER Bundaberg farmer Lex Greensill is very neatly turning the banking industry on its head, delivering ultra low cost loans to businesses, including agriculture.
Operating from his London base, the 42 year old former adviser to Britain's ex-prime minister David Cameron is disrupting how traditional supply chain finance functions.
His company Greensill Capital essentially delivers finance at the bond rate, plus a margin of less than one per cent a year.
Under the model the supplier typically receives the finance at the time an invoice is raised, freeing up available capital. The finance is then repaid when the payment is received from the product or service buyer some 60 to 90 days later. The model applies equally to goods or services.
While the model is relatively simple, it is the 'backroom' high level digital technology that ensures there is a seamless matching of the finance requirements of suppliers and the expectations of investors.
Mr Greensill said he had long been interested in finance, especially after seeing firsthand the impact of late payments the family cane farm. From those beginnings, he began to develop ideas on how suppliers could access more efficient financing, regardless of their size and geographic location.
"Farming is frankly one of the worst financed businesses out there," Mr Greensill told the Rural Press Club in Brisbane.
"As a working capital proposition it is terrible. If you think about our sugar business it could be up to three and a half years from the point we prepare land to when we generate the final piece of income from the crop.
"That's a terrible business to run. Compare that to a retailer or a factory, and it's rubbish."
Mr Greensill cut his teeth in agripolitics as a policy adviser with the Growcom predecessor, the Queensland Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.
At that time the fight was to make sure farmers received a fair deal from the central markets despite suffering a massive power imbalance.
"That inspired me to go from saying what is a fair deal and how do we deliver a fair deal, to how do we deliver that with capital as well," Mr Greensill said.
The passion to improve how finance is delivered saw Mr Greensill head to the UK. He became in expert in supply chain finance with mega bank Morgan Stanley. When the global financial crisis hit and banks began to downsize, he and his team shifted to Citibank.
However, in 2011 he took the bold step of establishing Greensill Capital, a company which has now has provided more than $50 billion in working capital finance to a pool of 1.7 million suppliers in more than 60 countries.
Mr Greensill likened his business to a virus.
"We integrate ourselves so deeply and tightly with our customers that we are getting updated information roughly four times every second from our customers," he said.
"It means we can see, hear and feel the beating heart of the supply chain that we support.
"When you have your finger on the pulse like that you can deliver credit more efficiently that anyone else."
