David Blackman is having a very good year.
In September, the founder, director and broker of Sydney-based brokerage Country 2 Coast Finance (C2CF) took home two honours at Australian Finance Group’s (AFG) 2026 New South Wales / Australian Capital Territory State Broker Awards: Best Broker Personal Loans award and the Best Broker Asset Finance award. The wins have secured him a place in the running at the national awards in Melbourne this November.
This is familiar territory for Blackman (pictured above right), who has previously claimed similar awards in 2025 and 2022.
C2CF, based in Sydney's northwestern suburb of Baulkham Hills, New South Wales, has been operating as a specialist asset and equipment finance brokerage for more than 10 years. His firm offers a number of solutions across business and personal finance. But Blackman brings roughly two decades of experience in Australia's finance and broking markets to the table, having worked for heavy hitters such as Macquarie Bank and Citibank before launching his own firm.
That depth of experience is serving him well in a market facing a number of headwinds. Higher interest rates and continued inflation, reduced borrowing capacity, a new federal budget and a general sense of economic uncertainty are all shaping the lending landscape. But the broker said there are still opportunities, particularly in novated leasing for electric vehicles (EVs), which allows employees to finance a vehicle and its running costs through their pre-tax salary.
"We're doing a lot more, probably three times more than we used to in that space," Blackman told Australian Broker.
We caught up with Blackman to hear more about the current opportunities in the market and what his latest industry accolades mean to him.
The following interview has been edited for grammar and clarity.
DB: It's good. It's always good to get the recognition, just a bit of a reward for the hard work you do all year.
DB: Not really, no. I wasn't really expecting to win this year.
DB: It's our volumes. We write a lot of business, and that award is all volume based.
DB: It's good. I've been to a few now, and it's always nice to get out of the business and have lunch and a beer with a few friends.
DB: It's hard to say. Probably the reward and recognition for the hard work, and that it actually means something to other people as well.
DB: We've definitely seen a drop-off, especially in our commercial finance side. I think businesses are just in a bit of a pause moment. But I do a lot of salary packaging, so Novated leasing. That is just still going crazy with the EV fringe benefit tax (FBT) exemption. But yeah, we've definitely seen a slow-off on the commercial side.
DB: Yes, Novated leasing. It's salary packaging of vehicles for employees. There's not a lot of brokers who do that. But with the new government incentives around buying EVs, everyone's starting to make the switch. We're doing a lot more, probably three times more than we used to in that space. This is employees' salary packaging and purchase of their motor cars. Australia is one of the only countries in the world that offer this product. Employees can basically buy an EV completely tax-free and [goods and services tax]-free. Because it's for [pay-as-you-go] employees only.
