Prezzee, a global leader in digital gifting and payments, has announced the launch of PrezzeePay, a transformative platform that combines financial-grade compliance with plug-and-play scalability – helping retailers and brands innovate without costly infrastructure changes.

End-to-End Gifting Programs – PrezzeePay

PrezzeePay, a 100% owned subsidiary of Prezzee, is now an Australian Financial Services (AFS) licence holder. This milestone means that PrezzeePay can provide a wider range of products, including regulated financial products and services on behalf of partners. This opens up the potential for Prezzee to support faster product development, build bespoke solutions, manage end-to-end gifting programs and grow strategic partnerships that go beyond transactions.

Because PrezzeePay leverages the payments network, it sits on top of existing technology infrastructure meaning retailers can launch a gift card program in weeks, not months, without updating existing technology or sinking money into costly integrations.

“PrezzeePay represents a major step forward in our mission to create seamless, secure, and meaningful payment experiences,” said Craig Smith, CEO of Prezzee. “We’re giving retailers and brands the tools to innovate faster, connect deeper with customers, and compete in a digital-first economy.”

PrezzeePay has been developed in partnership with UnionPay International,particularly within the gift card issuing business, meaning that retailers now have a secure, scalable way to boost loyalty, lift basket size, and offer global gifting programs.

Global unified gifting programs

Gift cards aren’t just a convenience – they’re a proven revenue driver, with recipients spending about 35% more than the card’s value. But for sectors like shopping centres, venues, franchise networks and luxury retail, fragmented POS systems and steep integration costs have made unified programs almost impossible. Prezzee Pay removes that barrier through universal acceptance, letting retailers who may have previously been priced out of gift card programs to keep their existing tech stack while offering a premium, digital-first experience that works globally – without the complexity or maintenance headaches

“There is a legacy belief within the gift card market that global or franchise retailers could never have a unified gifting program. We wanted to challenge that. PrezzeePay is a huge opportunity for consumers to get more flexibility and global acceptance, while retailers tap into Gen Z’s preference for cashless, mobile-first shopping,” said Benoit Garnaud, COO, Product & Technology of Prezzee. “PrezzeePay means faster speed to market, lower costs, and access to global customers – without spending money on ripping out existing systems.”

Capitalising on Growing Demand

Retailers are also racing to tap into a $26 billion prepaid and digital wallet market, which is forecast to grow nearly 10% annually. Gen Z is driving a shift to more flexible shopping and payments, with 80% preferring cashless transactions and more than 60% shopping primarily on mobile. PrezzeePay is designed to help retailers capitalise on this demand by giving consumers digital first, mobile gift cards that can be used at any location they choose.

GapMaps has announced the launch of its Local Area Marketing (LAM) Service to transform how businesses engage customers and build brand awareness in their local catchment. By placing data-driven campaign controls directly into the hands of local retail operators, franchisees, restaurants, and venues, they can eliminate wasted advertising spend and drive measurable growth.

The service addresses a major pain point for local businesses: the inefficiency of digital advertising platforms that rely on broad, online signals for targeting. These platforms often cast a wide net in the hope of catching the right audience, leading to significant waste and missed opportunities. In contrast, the GapMaps LAM Service leverages real-world behavioural data to identify and reach the most relevant local audiences, ensuring marketing budgets are spent with maximum impact.

“A huge amount of money is wasted on digital advertising that doesn’t reach the right audience in the local catchment area,” said Anthony Villanti, GapMaps Managing Director and Founder.

“Our Local Area Marketing Service solves this problem by using real-world insights to pinpoint customers. We’re putting the power of precision marketing directly into the hands of local operators, helping them connect with their communities and see a real return on investment.”

Designed to help brands increase visitation frequency from existing customers while attracting new ones, the LAM Service enables businesses to target campaigns within their defined catchment areas, encouraging loyal customers to visit more often and new audiences to engage for the first time.

The service is ideal for building brand awareness in the local catchment across a wide range of marketing and initiatives. This includes promoting store openings and launching new products, running competitor conquest campaigns or driving specific daypart opportunities, such as encouraging breakfast patrons to return for an evening meal.

The GapMaps LAM Service has already delivered strong results in pilot programs, including with a major global fitness brand, demonstrating its ability to create hyper-targeted, high-performing campaigns that empower franchisees to build local awareness and measurable growth. The service is also being used successfully by global and local brands outside the GapMaps platform, underscoring its flexibility and scalability in supporting local marketing strategies. 

Key customer benefits include:

• Empowering Local Businesses and Franchisees: Provides store operators with direct control over their local marketing budgets, enabling them to launch campaigns that complement national advertising efforts.

1. Eliminating Ad Spend Waste: Targets customers based on real-world activity, such as where they work, live, and visit, reducing spend on irrelevant audiences and improving return on investment compared to traditional platforms.
2. Hyper-Local Targeting: Uses GapMaps’ advanced trade area intelligence to build awareness, increase visit frequency, and attract new patrons within a store’s true catchment.
3. Advanced Audience Segmentation: Enables campaigns to target non-customers or competitor patrons, while excluding existing loyal customers, maximising acquisition budgets.
4. Turnkey Campaign Management: Offers an end-to-end solution where GapMaps manages strategy, creative, campaign optimisation, and reporting – making sophisticated local marketing accessible even for those without in-house marketing expertise.

The GapMaps LAM Service is available now across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America. While currently offered as a managed service, GapMaps plans to integrate LAM capabilities into its platform in future releases – further extending the value and strategic impact of its data intelligence ecosystem.

More than half of small businesses (58%) say Black Friday has overtaken Boxing Day as Australia’s biggest sales event, yet fewer are participating in 2025, citing affordability concerns in a tough economic climate, according to new research from global small business platform Xero.

While consumer appetite for bargains continues to grow, small businesses are increasingly struggling to keep up. The survey of 500 Australian small businesses revealed almost two-thirds (64%) feel the pressure to compete with big brands during Black Friday, up 4% year-on-year. These competitive dynamics are shaping not just whether small businesses take part, but also how they price their products and services during the sales period.

Participation drops amid cost concerns

This year, fewer small businesses are opting into Black Friday, with just 39% committing to definitely taking part, down by 22% since 2024. Many are stepping back due to cost pressures, with nearly a third (30%) saying they can’t afford to offer discounts, while a quarter (25%) believe their customers will support them regardless.

For those planning to participate, expectations are mixed. One in 10 are bracing for a potential drop in sales, highlighting the growing challenge of competing with major retailers. However, more than half (57%) anticipate a sales lift compared to previous years. This, on average, is modest at an 18% increase.

“Black Friday isn’t just a big business event anymore. It offers real opportunities for small businesses to connect with new customers and strengthen loyalty,” said Angad Soin, Global Chief Strategy Officer and Managing Director AU/NZ and Global Chief Strategy Officer at Xero. “Black Friday forces a tough decision. Small business owners have to gamble the opportunity of increased sales against the real-world pressures of higher costs and tighter margins, all while protecting their day-to-day cash flow.”

Mixed expectations and evolving motivations

The drivers for small businesses to engage with Black Friday are evolving. This year, of those participating, 59% say they’re doing so to attract new customers, up from 48% in 2024, while 45% cite building customer loyalty as a key motivator. This is not without hesitations, with 40% concerned about the toll on profit margins.

“To discount or not to discount must be a strategic decision, not reacting to short-term pressure and instead building a healthy business all year round . This is where digital tools are critical. Knowing your exact cash flow turns a reactive ‘pressured discount’ into a calculated, strategic move that you know you can afford,” Soin said.

“Small businesses are the heart of our communities and the backbone of our economy, and I strongly believe in supporting local. I encourage all Australians to get behind their favourite small businesses where they can, not just during Black Friday, but throughout the year.”

To help small businesses prepare for and manage the Black Friday period, there are a number of digital tools they can utilise such as Xero Analytics, which provides real-time insights into cash flow and performance. Additionally, Xero’s integration with inventory management platforms like Cin7 can also support businesses to streamline operations and make smarter stock decisions, which is key ahead of peak sales periods like Black Friday.

Sandisk has announced new storage solutions uniquely designed for creators at home, in the studio and everywhere in between. Developed for creators looking to elevate and deliver content that speaks to the world, the SANDISK Creator Series is designed for every step in the creative process, from idea to impact. The series features a tailored, professional-grade collection of products infused with vibrant colours that celebrate creativity and individuality, including the all-new SANDISK Creator Phone SSD with MagSafe compatibility.  

The SANDISK Creator Series is curated to keep up with the intensity of a demanding workflow and to ignite creative potential: 

• SANDISK Creator Phone SSD: This all-new SSD, specifically designed for creating content on the move, attaches effortlessly to MagSafe-compatible smartphones with capacities up to 2TB1 and read speeds up to 1000MB/s2 and write speeds up to 950MB/s2. Creators can now record stunning 4K at 60fps videos in Apple ProRes directly to their Creator Phone SSD to start editing instantly.7 Rugged and reliable for wherever inspiration strikes, this drive features a durable silicone shell, up to three-meter drop protection and IP65 water and dust resistance3. To help further streamline the editing process, users enjoy one month of Adobe Creative Cloud4. The SANDISK Creator Phone SSD is now available in 1TB1 and 2TB, for AUD MSRPs of $451.00 and $671.00 respectively, at JB Hi-Fi.   
• SANDISK Creator microSD™ Card: Available in capacities up to 1TB1, creators can capture stunning 4K5 and 5.3K5 footage effortlessly with pro-level performance and offload files at turbocharged speeds with a SANDISK QuickFlow™ microSD UHS-I Card USB-A Reader (sold separately). The SANDISK Creator microSD™ Card is now available in 256GB1 and 512GB, for AUD MSRPs of $99.00 and $176.00, respectively, at JB Hi-Fi. Additional capacities of 128GB and 1TB will follow in 2026. 
• SANDISK Creator SD UHS-II Card: Available in capacities up to 1TB1, this high-performance memory card is designed for creators who require professional-grade image and video capture with exceptional reliability to shoot, edit, and publish their posts seamlessly. The SANDISK Creator SD UHS-II Card is now available in 128GB1 and 256GB, for AUD MSRPs of $165.00 and $308.00 respectively, at JB Hi-Fi. Additional capacities of 512GB and 1TB will follow in 2026. 
• SANDISK Creator Phone Drive: Perfect for creators with multi-device workflows, this drive features both Lightning and USB Type-C™ connectors and offers up to 256GB1 of storage to efficiently manage high-resolution photos, numerous video files, or important documents in between devices. Use the SANDISK Memory Zone app on Android™ powered mobile devices to automatically back up all your favourite files.8 The SANDISK Creator Phone Drive is expected to be available in 2026. 
• SANDISK Creator USB-C™ Flash Drive: Equippedwith a versatile USB Type-C™ connector, this drive is designed for content creators who demand performance and durability wherever they are, with up to 1TB1 of storage capacity that provides ample storage for stress-free content creation. The SANDISK Creator USB-C™ Flash Drive is expected to be available in 2026. 
• SANDISK Creator Pro Portable SSD: Available in capacities up to 4TB1, this drive equips creators with the speed, capacity and durability they need for ultra-demanding creative workflows. Featuring powerful NVMe™ performance, efficiently transferring, editing, and backing up uncompressed footage, multi-camera project files, and AI-generated assets is now seamlessly easier. The SANDISK Creator Pro Portable SSD is expected to be available in 2026.  
• SANDISK Creator Desk Drive: Designed to be the compact hub for creative content, this desktop SSD delivers read speeds up to 4x faster than a regular desktop hard drive6, quick enough to transfer and back up large projects effortlessly. The SANDISK Creator Desk Drive is expected to be available in 2026.  

For a first look at the product and a chance to win gear from the new range, visit the SANDISK Creator Series pop-up booths in Sydney, at Broadway Shopping Centre (Ground Floor opposite Coles) from 19-25 November and Westfield Bondi Junction (Level 1 opposite NAB) from 22-28 December.  

9 in 10 small businesses owners believe their banks are profiting too much on card payment processing fees, while more than 2 in 5 don’t understand what the fees are for – according to new research from AMP Bank GO.

Card payment processing fees – also known as merchant fees – are charged to small businesses each time a customer pays by card. To stay afloat, many small businesses such as cafes, hairdressers, and the local corner store, are forced to absorb this expense, lift prices, or surcharge their customers.

This need to surcharge is causing tension between businesses and their customers, with close to half of small businesses indicating their customers are annoyed at being surcharged. Small businesses can’t solve this customer frustration without impacting their own viability. 

The RBA estimates that card surcharges cost consumers around $1.2 billion each year^[1], and is currently undertaking a review of card payment costs and surcharging.

Renee Williams, Florist owner, Albury, is calling out banks for what she believes is profit gauging sitting behind a smokescreen of deliberately confusing fees.

“I’m running my business on razor thin margins – meanwhile, we have no idea how much banks are making from fees – we just know they’re posting billions in annual profits. They are profiteering from every tap we process, meanwhile we don’t understand half of what we’re being charged and we’re scrambling to keep the lights on. We’re the ones pouring the coffees, arranging the flowers, sponsoring the local school raffles, and keeping main streets alive. We just want a fair go – not to be fleeced by a system that profits off our survival.”

Gerard Barrios, Café owner, Sydney, absorbs $14,000 worth of card payment processing fees per year.

“As a small cafe, we’ve chosen to absorb the cost of card payments rather than pass on to customers, which sounds noble, until you realise we’re being ripped off by a system designed to confuse us. I don’t even understand why I’m the one being charged.

“I’ve watched countless cafes and restaurants close in recent years, not because they weren’t good businesses, but because they couldn’t absorb an unsustainable burden that shouldn’t exist in the first place. We just want transparency and fairness, not a one-sided game.”

John Arnott, Director AMP Bank GO said that it’s time for banks to give small businesses and their customers a fair go on card payment processing fees. 

“Our small businesses – the backbone of local communities and Australia’s economy – deserve a card payment system that is transparent and fairly priced.

“AMP Bank GO is backing small businesses with three firm commitments, a no profit pledge on card payment processing fees until 2027, a commitment to lead on price, and to provide a plain-English breakdown on fees so business owners understand exactly what they’re paying for.”

AMP Bank GO’s three commitments to small businesses:

1. Low price promise on card payment processing fees
   Through Live Payments, AMP Bank GO will provide low in-person card payment processing fees across Visa, Mastercard and EFTPOS, when the settlement account is with AMP Bank GO, to help drive competition and keep operating costs down.

These fees will be reviewed quarterly against the publicly available card payment processing fees of the Big Four banks and leading acquirers Tyro, Zeller, and Square. Reductions will be promptly passed through to both new and existing customers to ensure continued competitiveness and transparency. 

• ‘No profit’ pledge on card payment processing fees 

AMP Bank GO is committed to keeping its card payment processing fees as low as possible, and to back this promise, will not take any profits on card payment fees until 2027.

As part of its ‘no profit’ pledge, AMP Bank GO will return any profits on card payment processing fees to its small business customers through a grant program in 2026 and 2027. Details about the pledge and grants program can be found on AMP Bank GO’s website.

• Fee transparency
  AMP Bank GO has published a plain-English breakdown of how card payment processing fees work to help small business owners understand exactly what they pay for and is committed to providing ongoing transparency for customers.

Learn more about AMP Bank GO’s ‘fair go’ commitments – visit amp.com.au/fair-go.

Why the card payment processing fees system broken – and why it matters:

• Banning surcharges without fixing merchant fees just hides the cost. It does nothing to reduce the actual fees paid by small businesses.
• It is likely that any increased costs of card payments to small businesses due to a surcharge ban will be worn by small businesses themselves or passed on to customers through increased pricing.
• Opaque pricing keeps fee margins out of sight and too many small businesses are captive to take-it-or-leave-it rates.
• Small businesses such as hairdressers, café owners and the local corner store, can end up subsidising the big banks’ premium rewards programs. 

[1] Reserve Bank of Australia, Review of Merchant Card Payment costs and Surcharges – Consultation Paper, July 2025, https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/review-of-retail-payments-regulation/2025-07/pdf/review-of-merchant-card-payment-costs-and-surcharging.pdf?v=2025-07-14 

If you run a small business, you know how important it is to stay agile. Things can change quickly, from cash flow to staffing and customer needs, and that means every decision counts. One area where flexibility is becoming a real game-changer is Car Subscriptions.

That’s where car subscription comes in, offering a clever way to access adaptable and predictable mobility at scale. A car subscription is a flexible, all-inclusive alternative to traditional car ownership or leasing. Think of them like any other subscription service you already use. For a single monthly fee, you get access to a vehicle with registration, insurance, maintenance, and roadside assistance all included. When your needs change, you can pause, swap, or upgrade your vehicle without long-term commitments or large upfront costs.

For businesses with five employees or fewer, flexibility is often the difference between growth and stagnation. Staffing levels shift, cash flow can fluctuate, and transport needs change month to month. A subscription model allows you to access the vehicles you need, when you need them, without tying up capital or managing complex fleet logistics.

The benefits go beyond convenience. Many small business owners spend valuable time managing vehicle administration, repairs, and renewals. With a subscription, mobility becomes a service rather than a fixed asset, freeing you to focus on what really matters: growing your business.

This approach also reflects a broader trend in modern business. From software to office space, flexibility has become essential. Mobility is now following the same path. Instead of committing to a single car for years, businesses can access the right vehicle for each stage of growth.

Car subscription is also helping small businesses transition to electric vehicles. High purchase prices and rapid depreciation have long been barriers for EV adoption. Subscription platforms make it easy to trial and scale EV fleets, supporting sustainability goals without the financial risk of traditional ownership.

At Karmo, we’ve designed our platform to make this process seamless. Our technology enables data-driven fleet management, self managed invoicing, and flexible vehicle swapping, giving business owners control without adding complexity.

For small businesses today, car ownership isn’t always the smartest choice. Subscription-based access gives the freedom to scale, adapt, and respond to change while keeping costs predictable and administration simple.

At Karmo, our mission is to make car access simple, affordable, and flexible. By rethinking vehicle ownership, we help businesses move forward efficiently, sustainably, and strategically. For a small business, mobility as a service is now a key driver of growth and resilience – a clever way to car.

Contributed by Nick Boucher, CEO & Co-Founder, Karmo

Intuit Inc. the global financial technology platform that makes Intuit TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, has announced the global availability of AI agents on the all-in one-Intuit platform, creating a more powerful and automated QuickBooks experience designed to deliver time savings, greater efficiency, insights and value for customers. The company also released a compelling new report which highlights the benefits of AI-driven platform solutions for business growth.

Now available to QuickBooks customers in Australia, a powerful, proactive team of AI agents and trusted human experts seamlessly delivers ‘done-for-you’ experiences across essential financial pillars—including growing and managing customers, accounting, finance, and sales tax—all within the trusted Intuit platform. Together this virtual team automates time-consuming tasks, streamlines collaboration and workflows and surfaces insights and recommendations that enable smarter, faster business decisions. Businesses can save up to 6 hours^[1] a week by completing workflows across multiple applications, including accounting, financing, customer management, and more.

Virtual team of AI agents

The virtual team of AI agents in QuickBooks will work together across the Intuit platform to handle repetitive tasks, surface insights, and support collaboration between business owners and their accounting professionals. These include:

• Accounting Agent: Automates bookkeeping and categorisation to help keep accounts clean and accurate. It identifies and resolves anomalies early, while facilitating seamless collaboration with your accounting professional.
• Customer Agent: Finds leads directly from your inbox, prioritises high-value opportunities, drafts personalised responses, books meetings, and tracks customer opportunities across the full sales cycle.
• Finance Agent: Delivers comprehensive financial summaries, including profit and loss, cash flow and balance sheets.
• GST AI Agent (Coming soon): Helps customers stay compliant by identifying differences between income on the Profit and Loss statement and net sales amounts on their GST reporting in sync. It also suggests likely causes for these differences and proposes solutions.
• Projects Agent: Accelerates setup by auto-filling key details for draft projects, reducing the need for manual data entry.

These new, ‘done-for-you’ experiences delivered by the new AI agents and trusted experts, are accompanied by a completely redesigned and personalised QuickBooks web layout. The homepage is transformed into a striking display of customisable widgets with a powerful business feed that shows real-time intelligent insights, recommendations, and summarises the workflows and tasks completed by the AI agents. Customers can seamlessly collaborate with their trusted experts, connect to additional Intuit products, services, and third-party apps to truly realise the benefits and power of Intuit’s all-in-one platform.

Suzy Nicoletti, Regional Vice President APAC said, “We are experiencing a once-in-a-generation shift where AI is fundamentally reshaping how businesses run and grow. We believe inefficiency is the hidden tax on growth, draining potential from businesses across Australia.

“With the launch of our virtual team of AI agents, combined with human intelligence, we are bringing everything a business needs onto one platform. QuickBooks on the Intuit platform not only provides access to groundbreaking AI agents to streamline workflows, but also enables customers to access their essential business tools that work seamlessly together across their most critical jobs. This allows us to deliver truly ‘done-for-you’ automation, freeing leaders from the operational grind so they can focus on their vision and power their prosperity in this new AI era.”

The $35-billion opportunity:¹ Seizing missed opportunities to fuel SMB growth

A new Intuit report titled The Growth Gap* reveals why QuickBooks’ AI-driven evolution matters. In Australia, nearly half (48 per cent)¹ of small and medium-sized business growth potential goes unrealised, held back by inefficiencies, fragmented systems, and decision fatigue. A stronger ability to execute these opportunities could lift revenues across the Australia SMB economy by 6.7 per cent¹ annually, representing an uplift of $209,330¹ on average per company. Across Australia’s 2.5 million small and mid-sized businesses.^[2] This improved execution represents an additional $35 billion in potential economic uplift.

The study, which looked into the hidden growth potential of the Australian, UK, and Canadian SMB economy, found this “growth gap” in Australia is widest among mid-market firms.

Key findings from the study:

• Operational overload: Australian leaders are losing the equivalent of two full days of work per month due to operational overload, largely caused by switching between 6–9 separate systems.¹ This systemic inefficiency breeds a delegation crisis, where half of Australian leaders – a proportion highest among mid-market businesses – are nearly always involved in daily operations. Consequently, a third of leaders admit that critical decisions and projects often slow down because their personal involvement is required, a trend compounded by delegation confidence being significantly lower in Australia compared to their counterparts in the UK and Canada.¹
• The economic cost: This lost efficiency is costing businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual unrealised revenue. Businesses with 10-49 employees saw the highest percentage increase in unrealised revenue, while those with 50-99 employees left the greatest amount on the table, an average of $660,000 and $685,000 in unrealised annual revenue, respectively.¹
• The AI solution: AI is proving its value now, with early adopters already saving up to 6 hours a week and 80% of leaders agreeing it can help them delegate more effectively while maintaining control.¹

Ciarán Quilty, Senior Vice-President for International at Intuit said: “Ambition is abundant, but the path to execution remains obstructed by everyday complexity. The challenge isn’t ambition itself, but the systems required to turn it into progress. When routine work is automated, time and visibility returns – giving leaders the insights they need, and the confidence to act with conviction.”  Sonal Patel, Founder of Shilu’s Vegetarian and Intuit QuickBooks customer expresses the significant impact the integration of AI will have on her growth. She said, “As a growing business with both an online shop and stockists across Australia, we were constantly battling paperwork and GST compliance. Intuit’s new AI agents on QuickBooks are a game-changer. The Accounting Agent handles the daily bookkeeping and categorisation, and the upcoming GST AI Agent will ensure we stay compliant without the usual headache. This automation saves us crucial time we can now spend on creating new recipes, not on spreadsheets. ”

^[1]  Based on Intuit’s Growth Gap report as of October 2025

^[2] https://www.asbfeo.gov.au/small-business-data-portal/number-small-businesses-australia 

A new generation of young small business owners in Australia are redefining success, driven by a desire to create a lasting legacy through the positive impact they make in their communities and the businesses they plan to pass down to their families.

The research commissioned by American Express explores the aspirations of Australian small business owners and how prepared they are to achieve them. It revealed notable differences between younger and older generations in how they define long-term success.

While 53% of all small business owners say leaving a legacy is important, this figure rises among younger generations, with 64% of Millennials and 59% of Gen Z operators focused on leaving a legacy compared to less than half (45%) of owners from older generations.

For more than a third (38%) of small business owners, legacy means making a positive impact in their community, with almost half (48%) of Millennials saying it’s the type of legacy most meaningful to them.

Liana Kohn-Gardner, Vice President of Merchant Partnerships, Global Merchant Services A/NZ at American Express said, “These younger generations have grown up as digital natives with rich online communities, and what our research shows is that as business owners, they also care about making a difference in their real-life communities too. We found that many want to give back to their community, and they hope this continues as their legacy.”

After leaving a positive community impact, small business owners said that passing their business onto family (29%), creating a brand that outlasts them (25%) and building generational wealth (25%) are important legacies.

For younger generations, small business is a family affair

With 81% of Australian small business owners surveyed being the original founder, succession planning is deeply personal. More than half of Millennial (55%) and Gen Z (53%) business owners say they want to pass their business onto family as a legacy. By contrast, the older generations are most likely to sell their business for the proceeds. Just 37% of Gen X and 40% of Baby Boomer and Older business owners intend to pass their business onto family.

“For younger generations in particular, we see that family is an important part of their business’ success. Four in ten Millennial business owners already employ family in their business today, significantly more than older generations, as they see them as trustworthy, naturally invested in their success and believe they understand the long-term vision of the business,” said Liana Kohn-Gardner.

Long-term aspirations, short term priorities

While Australia’s small business operators may aspire to leave a lasting legacy, the research uncovered that most (65%) don’t yet have a succession plan in place. This figure is highest among Gen Zs, with almost half (43%) not having thought about succession plans – more than double any other generation.

Matthew Addison, Chair of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) said, “The Amex research found that more than half (62%) of small business owners plan only a year ahead or less, reflecting the fact that small business owners are some of the busiest people in the country. Even if small business owners haven’t had a chance to formalise their succession plans yet, some things that might be helpful for them to consider is who might step into key roles, how would customer relationships and business knowledge be passed on, and how finances would be managed through a transition. Forward planning gives business owners the best chance to protect what they’ve built and ensure their legacy

continues.”

Turning aspirations into action

While just one in ten (10%) small business owners are looking five years into the future, growth ambition is strong: 43% cite financial security as their number one motivator for expansion, followed by creating more freedom through passive income or work-life balance (30%).

But cashflow remains a critical barrier to growth. More than a quarter (28%) of small business owners have had to turn down growth opportunities due to cashflow constraints, with millennials (41%) and Gen Z (39%) operators the most affected.

While many rely on personal savings (44%), others are making the most of financial tools, with more than a quarter (27%) using business credit or charge cards, one in five (19%) using business loans and about one in 10 (11%) using flexible payment options included in cards.

Liana Kohn-Gardner said, “Cashflow can be one of the most frustrating barriers to growth for small business owners because they know they have a great business, but they can’t scale up if their outgoings aren’t matching the incomings. Our Amex Business Charge Cards provide the flexibility for business owners at all stages of growth, while also providing rich rewards for eligible business spending.

“The Platinum Business Charge Card gives business owners breathing space with up to 55 daysi to pay for purchases and access to our Flexible Payment Optionii, which can help to bridge the gaps between incoming and outgoing payments. It also features AccessLine®iii, a platform where business owners can make domestic payments to suppliers, even if they don’t accept Amex, all while earning points to reward their hard work. This is all about truly backing small business owners with products and services that meet their needs so they can focus on doing what they do best – growing great Aussie businesses.”

Other findings of interest

• 81% of Australian small business owners are the original founder.
• More than half (55%) of Australian small businesses have been operating for more than 5 years, and a third (33%) have been operating for more than 10 years.