Fintechs are making ripples in the market for the supply of loans to very small businesses, a senior executive of ANZ confirmed at the Hayne royal commission yesterday. Kate Gibson, ANZ's general manager for small business banking, agreed that the number of business customers with loans managed by her division fell to 114,263 in 2017, down from 131,446 in 2014. Michael Hodge, counsel assisting the commission, put it to Gibson that in 2014, SME customers submitted 38,251 applications for loans and that by 2017 that had fallen to 21,619. Gibson told Hodge that "the discussions that we had at the time were with regard to the fact that the small business segment had become one that was of interest to a lot of financial institutions. It became more competitive. "There were new entrants into the market by way of fintechs, who were also offering lending options to small business customers. And that was what we put it down to."