Short answer: Across 5,626 loans funded since 2012, the median time from enquiry to money in the account is 36 hours for property-secured lending and 24 hours for cash-flow lending. The fastest file on record funded in 2 hours. Most Australian business lenders do not publish this number at all.
Why this report exists
Every business lender in Australia advertises speed. Almost none of them publish what speed actually means, which is how long a real file takes from the first enquiry to cleared funds. ‘Fast approval’ is not a measurement, and ‘24-hour funding’ quoted as a best case tells a borrower nothing about what to plan around.
These are the medians from our own loan book. Not the best case, not the average — the median, so a single unusual eight-week file cannot flatter the number. Where a figure is a part year or comes from a small sample, it is marked as such.
How long does each type of business loan take to fund?
Time from first enquiry to cleared funds, measured as the median across every loan of that type. The pattern runs against the usual assumption: lending secured by property is at the fast end, not the slow end, because it is assessed on equity and an exit rather than on trading history.
| Loan type | Median | Fastest | Slowest | Loans |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First mortgage | 12h | 6h | 48h | 149 |
| Unsecured / cash-flow loan | 24h | 2h | 72h | 2,863 |
| Line of credit | 24h | 8h | 72h | 119 |
| Second mortgage | 36h | 24h | 72h | 1,976 |
| Caveat loan (Victoria) | 36h | 24h | 72h | 269 |
| Bridging finance | 36h | 24h | 72h | 98 |
| Asset finance | 48h | 8h | 96h | 126 |
| Invoice finance | 96h | 48h | 150h | 26 |
Two figures deserve the footnote. The caveat loan row covers Victorian files only, because Victoria is the one state where the loan settles on a caveat first and the second mortgage is registered behind it. Everywhere else the same loan settles directly as a registered second mortgage, which is why the second mortgage sample is so much larger. And invoice finance sits at the slow end because the facility is assessed against a debtor ledger rather than an asset, which is a different exercise.
Does where you are change how fast you get funded?
Less than most owners expect. Everything is handled by phone, electronically and with electronic settlement, so the spread across states is narrow and tracks valuation logistics rather than distance from a capital city.
| State or territory | Loans funded | Median hours to funds |
|---|---|---|
| Victoria | 1,519 | 30h |
| ACT | 169 | 30h |
| New South Wales | 1,575 | 36h |
| Queensland | 1,069 | 36h |
| South Australia | 394 | 36h |
| Western Australia | 619 | 42h |
| Tasmania | 169 | 48h |
| Northern Territory | 112 | 48h |
The gap between the fastest and slowest jurisdictions is 18 hours. What drives it is whether a desktop valuation is acceptable: metropolitan property in an active market can be valued in minutes, while a remote or single-industry location generally needs a physical inspection, and that adds days rather than hours.
Which industries borrow, and what for
Loan counts by industry, with the reason the money was needed most often in each.
| Industry | Loans funded | Most common purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Construction | 1,013 | Progress payments and materials |
| Trades | 900 | Equipment and working capital |
| Transport & logistics | 675 | Vehicle or fleet costs |
| Hospitality | 563 | Seasonal cash flow and fit-out |
| Retail | 506 | Stock purchase |
| Manufacturing | 450 | Equipment and inventory |
| Agriculture & farming | 394 | Seasonal operating costs |
| Professional services | 394 | Tax and working capital |
| Medical & dental | 337 | Practice fit-out and equipment |
| Other | 394 | Short-term cash-flow needs |
Construction and trades together account for a third of everything funded, and in both the dominant reason is the same: money owed on long terms and needed on short ones. That is a structural feature of how Australian construction pays, not a sign of businesses in trouble.
What the numbers say that the marketing does not
- Property security speeds lending up, not down. First mortgages are the fastest product on the book at a 12-hour median, ahead of unsecured lending.
- A bank decline is the norm, not the exception. 61% of borrowers had already been declined somewhere else. It is the ordinary starting point for this kind of lending.
- The slow part is almost never the lender. Where files run long it is signatories being unreachable, a property needing a physical valuation, or something unexpected on the title.
- ‘Same day’ is real but it is not typical. The fastest file on record funded in 2 hours. The median is 36. Both are true, and only one of them is safe to plan around.
Method
Source. The Instant Business Finance loan book, covering 2012 to September 2026. Instant Business Finance is a trading name of Company Cash Pty Ltd (ABN 88 673 762 297) and has been lending since 2012.
What is measured. Elapsed time from the first enquiry to funds cleared in the borrower’s nominated account, in hours, including weekends. Not business hours, and not time from formal approval, which is the measure that makes lenders look fastest and helps borrowers least.
Median, not average. Every headline time figure is a median. Fastest and slowest columns show the full observed range so the spread is visible rather than hidden.
Sample sizes. Shown for every time figure. Invoice finance (26 loans) and bridging finance (98) are small samples and should be read as indicative.
What is not published. Loan values and settlement amounts by state, industry, year and loan type are commercially confidential and are not included. Figures here are counts, percentages and elapsed times only.
2026 is a part year, to September 2026.
Using this report
The figures may be quoted or cited with attribution to the Australian Business Funding Speed Report, Instant Business Finance. Journalists, brokers and researchers who want a specific cut of the data can ask for it on 1300 863 711.
