An agreement limiting unilateral changes to contracts and standardising lending transactions between the four major banks and small business owners was announced yesterday. The Council of Small Business Australia has welcomed the agreement, which was brokered by the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and her staff, as well as the Australian Bankers Association. COSBOA called the move "a ground-breaking agreement for processing contracts and inclusions for small business people". "It's taken longer than it should have done, but the Big Four banks have finally agreed to eliminate unfair terms from their contracts," Peter Strong, COSBOA's chief executive officer, said.  COSBOA notes that banks can no longer call in a default for an unspecified negative change in circumstances of a small business customer. In addition, banks are now able to vary contracts only in specific circumstances. "The other big change is the new maximum threshold for the changes to take effect which is now A$3 million, well up from the $300,000 set for other contracts. This is much more reflective of the real situation in the small business finance space, we do not want to appear greedy, we'd like it to be $5 million, but $3 million is a great leap forward," Strong said.  The Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman, Kate Carnell, also reiterated that there might be more to come on this issue: saying it was good that banks had finally committed to complying with unfair contract terms legislation, but the lending threshold should be $5 million instead of the $3 million as agreed. By way of example as to what small business owners can expect from major banks after 21 August, ANZ provided further commentary on what the changes would mean for its small business lending contracts, where the value of the contract is up to $1 million, and/or where lending to the customer group is up to $3 million in total credit exposure. "The changes include changes to our default clauses and limiting the instances where breach of a financial indicator covenant will be an event of default to specialised finance transactions such as margin lending, self-managed super funds financing, and property development," the bank said in a statement. ANZ will notify small business lending customers of the specific changes to their contracts over the coming months.