Judo Bank co-founder and CEO Joseph Healy is lobbying the Federal Government to advance the case for a new financial scheme to help small businesses ride out the impact of the Covid-19 economic crisis.

Judo has been circulating a discussion paper among key ministers of the Morrison Government, including Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and small business minister Michaelia Cash, which stumps up policy options for dealing with the mounting debt challenges of Australian small businesses.

It includes a proposal to establish a new investment scheme where governments and private sector institutions invest in special debt instruments to replenish the capital resources of SMEs as they try to rebuild their businesses.

In judo, you lift and throw opponents on their backs, pin them to the ground and apply various chokeholds or joint locks until they submit. It’s what SMEs might like to do to big banks. But Judo Bank’s co-founder Joseph Healy, has a better idea…

Judo is all about using speed and agility to out-manoeuvre opponents bigger than you. What better name, then, for a challenger intent on running circles around what it sees as the lumbering giants of SME banking in Australia?

As the country emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, facing a predicted 10 per cent contraction in GDP as 30 years of growth ends in what’s been described as ‘a shattering, warp-speed recession’, two-year-old Judo Bank (formerly Judo Capital) has flexed its junior muscles and honed its ‘high-touch, high tech’ technique to deliver real change.

With many small-to-medium businesses feeling the lockdown pinch and uncertain about their recovery post-corona, we turn to risk management expert Jacqui Colwell from Judo Bank. With over 30 years of experience in financial services, Colwell shares her insights on how to navigate the path ahead and manage future market risks.

Q&A with Jacqui Colwell, Chief Risk Officer and Co-Founder, Judo Bank