Rate Money has hired Chris Paterson as the non-bank's new head of sales and distribution, reporting directly to Ryan Gair, co-founder and chief executive officer of Rate Money. Paterson has been tasked with strengthening sales capability, developing meaningful relationships across the firm's franchise and referral networks and identifying growth opportunities.
"Chris brings an outstanding combination of industry experience, commercial capability and a genuine focus on people," Gair said. "His track record in building high-performing teams and developing strong industry relationships makes him an excellent addition to our leadership team."
Sydney-based Paterson left Australia's lending ecosystem in April 2025, after nearly two decades in the industry, to launch his own performance consultancy firm called Run Rocket Run, alongside fellow loan market alum Rodney Cottam. The last eight-and-a-half years before launching the startup were spent at non-bank lender Resimac, where he worked in a number of senior-level roles, lastly as general manager distribution. Prior to that, he spent more than 10 years at non-bank Homeloans. Paterson is also a former National Rugby League (NRL) player, having played for the Wests Tigers.
Gair said Paterson's experience — which includes non-bank sales, operations, product, and distribution and market — is exactly what Rate Money needs to achieve its next level of growth.
"Our ambition is to keep challenging the market and make it easier for self-employed Australians to access the finance they need," Gair said. "Achieving that means continuing to strengthen our distribution network, giving our people the tools and support to succeed, and ensuring our network has compelling solutions for their clients. Chris will be instrumental in building the capability of our sales team, creating new opportunities across our distribution channels and helping our franchisees and referrers grow their businesses.”
This past winter, Rate Money accelerated its national growth strategy by opening its fifth Queensland location in the Brisbane suburb of Mount Gravatt, and by hiring Ruchir Kakkar to lead operations.
Kakkar's arrival at Rate Money was in addition to a number of other senior-level hires at the firm earlier this year, including Robert Cannizzaro as head of risk and compliance, and Frank Knez as chief marketing officer.
Those hires followed the onboarding of La Trobe and MA Money alum Chris Oh as senior manager, credit development, and Resimac's Leyla Yuksel as partnership manager, NSW in May. In addition, in January, Rate Money appointed Affie Mansouri as its new NSW state manager.
Gair told Australian Broker that as Rate Money continues to scale, "it's important we have the right leadership in place to support the next stage of our journey."
The CEO added that the Mount Gravatt opening "demonstrates our confidence in the market."
But Rate Money's growth includes more physical locations. The non-bank — which was founded in 2019 by Gair, along with Glenn Maynard and Luke Sheales — now has more than 40 branches around the country. In addition to the Queensland expansion, the firm also entered the market in Western Australia earlier this year. That's on top of franchisee offices in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
In addition, the Sydney-headquartered firm, which specializes in loans for self-employed borrowers, grew its loan book to more than $10 billion last year. Now the non-bank has its sights set on an even bigger loan book while inching closer to 50 branches by the end of the calendar year.
Most recently, Rate Money launched the Evolve Easy Doc product. The promotion, running now through 1 December, offers a 6.99% p.a. (7.36% p.a. comparison rate) for owner-occupied principal and interest loans up to 80% loan-to-value ratio (LVR). There's also no application fee, no risk fee, and no lenders mortgage insurance (LMI).
Paterson said he's excited to join the team "at such an important time for the business. Rate Money has built a strong position in the market by understanding the needs of self-employed borrowers and taking a different approach to lending. I’m looking forward to working with the team and our partners to build on that foundation, create new opportunities and help more clients achieve their goals.”
Meanwhile, despite an increasingly volatile lending landscape, one that is cluttered with higher interest rates, inflationary pressures and rising costs of living, a revised federal budget that reduces tax incentives and falling property prices — Australia's non-bank sector is having a moment.
In the June quarter, the value of home loans issued by Australia’s non-bank sector surged 65.2% to $10.49 billion, up from $6.35 billion a year earlier, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, which was analysed by Money.com.au for a survey. Home loan lending at major banks, by comparison, grew just 2% during the same period to $87.61 billion, up from $85.41 billion.
But it's non-banks' combination of faster approvals, more flexible credit policies, personalised service and a greater willingness to lend to borrowers who fall outside traditional bank criteria that is driving the sector’s growing appeal.
"More and more customers are falling outside the traditional lending guidelines, and major banks are more focused on vanilla customers, customers who are stable in their employment and income," said Paterson. "Also, non-banks' credit appetite is broader than those of the major [banks]. Non-banks could support SMSF-based customers, self-employed, customers who have different income streams, customers who are at higher risk in terms of credit activity on their credit reports, or inconsistent repayments on their mortgages."
