Many IBA customers had already felt serious impacts from bushfires before COVID 19 hit. Given so much of the work in Business Solutions is face-to-face, a quick pivot was made to keeping in touch with telephone and video conferencing tools.

BUSHFIRE RELIEF

In order to support customers impacted by the bushfires, IBA:

• assisted seven businesses with temporary repayment suspensions
• provided 11 businesses with a $2,000 bushfire crisis grant to cover immediate needs
• helped one business with insurance claims.

DEALING WITH COVID-19

Supported by NIAA, IBA rolled out a $50 million Indigenous Business Relief package to:

• help customers identify pandemic impacts on their business
• provide loans and grants to assist business stay afloat during the crisis
• assist businesses diversify revenue streams and pivot to new business models

IBA also deferred repayments and waived interest for existing business loan customers for four months.

Staff across IBA quickly organised and managed unusually large numbers of support measures including the following (to 30 June 2020):

• receiving 725 expressions of interest for support
• providing 255 business impact assessments through partner organisations
• approving 83 loan/grant packages worth $7.0 million