Are You Getting Your Broker’s Best? | Finlease

You’re about to sign for a piece of equipment. Maybe it’s a $180,000 excavator, a prime mover, or updating your fleet. The number is big, the quote is in front of you, and the person who handed it over sounds confident. The one thing you can’t see from where you’re sitting is whether it’s a good deal. That’s the moment a broker earns their keep. It’s also the moment experience stops being a line on an about page and becomes the difference between the finance you were offered and the finance you should have been offered.

Finlease has been arranging equipment and vehicle finance for Australian businesses since 1989, which is more than 35 years. In that time the team has grown to around 100 people, funds over $1 billion a year across roughly 8,000 transactions, and works with a panel of more than 40 lenders. Experience at that scale means a broker who has seen your situation before, knows which lender is likely to fund it, and can tell you before you sign whether the deal in front of you stacks up.

What 35 years teaches a broker

Experience in finance is pattern recognition. A broker who has structured thousands of deals across every kind of business has seen your situation before, or something close enough to it. They know which lender will fund a five-year-old truck and which one won’t look at it. They know how a seasonal cash flow reads to a credit team, and how to present it so the business is understood rather than filed under “too hard”. Mark O’Donoghue started the business in 1989 with one desk. Today we run around 50 client-facing brokers across the country, and the deals we solve every day are the ones that don’t fit a template. Thirty-five years. Eight thousand transactions a year. That’s a lot of problems we’ve already solved before yours arrives.

Scale that works for you, not against you

Being one of Australia’s largest equipment finance brokers changes what we can do for you. When lenders compete for our volume, that competition flows through to your rate and to the exceptions a lender is willing to make. We deal with all the major banks at wholesale level, plus specialist and second-tier lenders, more than 40 in total. About 80% of our volume is placed with Tier 1 lenders at Tier 1 pricing, because most clients qualify for the best rates and should get them. The other 20% goes to specialist lenders for the businesses that genuinely need them. That ratio is the point. The right client ends up with the right lender, not the lender that happens to be easiest or most profitable to place.

Specialists for the deals that don’t fit the box

Some assets and some industries need a broker who lives in that world. Over 35 years we’ve built genuine specialisms across the sectors where a general finance approach falls short. Heavy transport and trucking, where a broker needs to know the difference an odometer reading makes to a lender. Cranes and earthmoving, where the asset value and the job pipeline both matter. Aviation. Rural and agricultural equipment. Fitness and gym fit-outs. Civil and construction plant. Vendor and technology finance for suppliers financing their own customers. These aren’t badges on a website. They’re our brokers, who’ve spent years in one industry, learned how its money moves, and built relationships with the lenders who understand it. When your deal has something unusual in it, an older asset, income that doesn’t read neatly on paper, or a fast growth phase that hasn’t shown up in the numbers yet, that specialism is what turns a maybe into a yes.

Recognised by the people who see every broker’s work

We’ve been named CAFBA Broker of the Year 2025, an award the lenders nominate rather than one we claim for ourselves. That distinction matters. The people who see every broker’s deals from the inside, the credit teams and business development managers across our panel of 40+ lenders, are the ones who put us forward. Add more than 2,000 five-star reviews from our clients, and it’s recognition from both sides of the deal.

What the experience looks like before you sign

Experience is only worth something if it shows up in how you’re treated. We talk you through the paperwork rather than sending a link and hoping for the best. And if you already have a quote from somewhere else, we’ll compare it for free and tell you honestly whether you’re already getting a good deal. Comparing costs nothing, and there’s no impact on your credit score to do it. After 35 years, that’s what the experience is meant to feel like.

Before you sign anything, have someone in your corner who has seen the deal before.