Banks may be overcharging for business finance, Bruce Billson, the minister for small business, told the Franchise Council of Australia Conference yesterday."Two thirds of small businesses have mortgaged their houses," he said. "We've seen a consolidation in the finance sector, and the cost of these funds has increased quite significantly." "Over the last six years, the spread, the margin above the Reserve Bank cash rate for the variable residentially secured mortgage for business purposes, has gone from a little over two per cent to four [per cent]."Yet, if you are putting your house on the line, surely the cost of default is decreased significantly?"The risk of default is down, the cost of default is down, but the price of that funding has gone up. "It is a real area of work where we need to get alongside the prudential regulators and say, 'Surely the new normal would be more encouraging of small business finance than it is now, when so many people are having to put their houses on the line?'"Billson implied that access to business finance is not an issue, rather it was just the cost of it."A preparedness to mortgage your home" is part and parcel of a "risk-taking appetite", Billson said.