Gary Mills has spent over 23 years involved in financing SME’s, with a particular focus on businesses that import and export goods. He began his career as a Chartered Accountant at Deloitte before moving into the finance industry when he joined Clive Isenberg at Scottish Pacific Business Finance (SPBF) in 1987. In 1991, under Clive’s direction, SPBF joined Factors Chain International, a worldwide network whose members provide credit protection and finance to their clients, and Gary was appointed to establish the International Factoring business for SPBF.
Gary says, “SPBF provided a range of debtor-finance solutions to Australian businesses, for both domestic trade and import/export transactions. SPBF’s membership of Factors Chain International enabled me to attend many international conferences to meet executives in similar roles, to exchange ideas regarding the financing of SME’s and mechanisms to reduce the significant credit risk involved in international trade. Although the majority of SPBF’s business activity was in domestic financing, we were very interested in the import/export business and understood that international trade volumes were increasing significantly, so we actively promoted SPBF’s involvement in international finance. It was this interest in the credit process and financing of imports and exports that was the catalyst for the Octet business many years later.
“I joined Clive at Octet Finance in 2007 undertaking the responsibility for the risk and credit management for the business, as well as some of the back-office operations. The majority of my time is spent assessing new business submissions that are presented by Octet’s Business Transaction Specialists. I have a small team running the operations side of the business, which includes the various payment functions, daily foreign currency processes, and the record-keeping activities. I am also responsible for overseeing our Financial Services Licence requirements, ensuring that we comply with the Anti-Money Laundering legislation, that our treasury function is efficient and liaising with our solicitors whenever we make changes to our products or launch new products.”
As a new entrant into the business transaction finance arena, Gary believes that Octet has a great advantage in the current market. “We are flexible and fast-moving. We are in a position to make quick decisions in relation to new business submissions, and the Octet facility can be activated within a few days after approval for unsecured arrangements. This gives us a significant advantage over larger financial institutions, which often take several weeks to assess and approve submissions, and then several more weeks to activate their facilities.
“We have been able to use this competitive advantage to grow very quickly over the past three years. The management team have been able to introduce new products to fill needs in the market as soon as they become apparent. The fact that Octet is offering an unsecured product in the current turbulent market is evidence of our ability to stay ahead of our competitors and satisfy market demand. The introduction of our new suite of products to provide businesses with a Total Working Capital Solution is another step to assist our clients with the day-to-day financing of their business.”