Lenders that accept bad credit

Three tiers of lender, three tiers of tolerance

• Prime (big four, major regionals): clean file required. A paid default under about $500, or a telco listing older than two years, is sometimes overlooked. Anything more is usually declined by the scorecard before a human sees it.
• Near-prime: one or two paid defaults, minor arrears, a discharged Part IX debt agreement or a short employment gap. Rate premium typically modest.
• Specialist / non-conforming: unpaid defaults, judgments, discharged bankruptcy, ATO payment plans, multiple listings. Assessed manually, priced to risk, and almost always requires a larger deposit.

What every bad-credit lender actually wants to see

• The last six months of clean conduct — no dishonours, no overdrawn accounts, no missed direct debits.
• An explanation with evidence: illness, redundancy, separation, a business failure. Documented, one-off events are treated far more kindly than a pattern.
• A larger deposit. 10% is a common floor for near-prime; 20% or more for a serious specialist file.
• No payday lending or buy-now-pay-later stress in recent statements. This kills more applications than defaults do.

What it costs

Expect a rate premium above prime, sized to the severity of the file: small for a single aged paid default, substantial for unpaid defaults with a high LVR. Risk fees on top of LMI are common at specialist tier.

Frame that premium as the price of entry, not a life sentence. Most specialist loans are written with a two-year exit plan built in.

The exit plan matters more than the entry rate

The right question isn't 'what rate can I get today' — it's 'how fast can I get to a normal rate'. A good broker writes the file so that in 18–24 months, with clean conduct and an aged listing, you refinance to prime.

That means avoiding long fixed terms and heavy break costs, keeping the loan structure simple, and making sure nothing in the new loan blocks a future refinance.

A note on rates

Rates and policies change constantly, and every lender prices to its own funding costs and risk appetite. Nothing on this page is a rate quote — it's a guide to how these lender types differ so you know where to look.