Wisr obtains additional $25m facility

Wisr Limited (Wisr) has completed an agreement for an institutionally backed debt facility, supporting its continued growth. The non-bank lender will draw $20 million initially, with a further $5 million being made available subject to certain milestones being achieved.

The facility’s scheduled maturity date is 1 July 2025 and will be drawn at the head company level. Wisr intends to use part of these proceeds to repay its existing debt facility (totalled at $6.5 million), maturing in May next year.

Additionally, the non-bank lender has obtained credit approval from one of the big four banks for a new warehouse facility, which will support both secured vehicle loan and personal loan growth.

The new warehouse facility is set to further diversify Wisr’s funding sources as well as improving growth through funding capacity and add robustness to the company’s balance sheet.

This follows Wisr reporting $186 million in new loan originations in its 1Q23 results released on 26 October 2022.

The non-bank lender continued to lift its pricing to protect net interest margin (NIM) and confirmed that demand for its lending products had delivered $186 million in new loan originations, which revealed a 41 per cent increase on the previous corresponding period (pcp).

According to the results, arrears had also decreased from 0.98 per cent to 0.89 per cent and operating revenue had grown by 75 per cent on pcp.

Wisr CFO, Andrew Goodwin, said due to the current market conditions, “diversification of scalable funding sources and balance sheet robustness is prudent”.

“These provide Wisr with the flexibility required to deliver profitability in the short term and support our medium-term growth ambitions,” Mr Goodwin said.

“Receiving institutional debt funding and credit approval from another Big 4 Bank is a testament to the Wisr lending platform, our technology and processes and the continued strong performance of our prime loan book.

“Wisr is in a strong position to navigate current market conditions, protect the business from any prolonged economic downturn and deliver a profitable business.”

The CFO concluded that the non-bank lender’s resilience “stems from the combination” of material reductions in operating costs, lifting yield through forward loan book rate increases to its clients, moderated growth plans, and the performance of Wisr’s prime loan book.

[RELATED: 1Q23 loan originations up 41% annually: Wisr]