October 5, 2025 • 25 mins
David Bussau, founder of Opportunity International Australia, began life in an Anglican boys’ home and started his entrepreneurial journey at 15 with a rented hotdog stand. After building several successful businesses, he turned to aid work following Cyclone Tracey and an earthquake in Bali, where he realised traditional aid didn’t break poverty cycles. Pioneering microfinance, he gave a $50 loan to Indonesian farmer Ketut Suwiria, who built a thriving business and created jobs in his community. Inspired, Bussau founded Maranatha Trust and later partnered with Al Whittaker to form Opportunity International in 1979, which now supports millions in 30 countries. Though retired, he continues advising organisations and has been honoured with awards including the Order of Australia, Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and Senior Australian of the Year.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News talk EDB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowen
on News talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Gooday, and welcome to Real Life. I'm John Cowen. There's
poverty in the world, with over eight hundred million surviving
or not surviving on less than three dollars a day,
and probably a billion more who never experienced a sense
of getting ahead. And if you think that one person
could never make a difference to those figures, then I
think my guest and I could change your mind. He's
(00:55):
done it for himself and he's gone on to help
literally millions of others get out of poverty. Welcome to
David Bassou.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah, thank you, Jean lovely to be on the line
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I actually spoke with you twenty years ago and you
were already in your sixties then, and you told me
that you're never going to retire. You're in your eighties now.
Are you still working?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yes? Still working?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Where have you been to most recently?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Most recent was Vietnam? It's just I'm love last week.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, okay, well that's a good hobby. For a man
in his eighties to be shooting around the world doing good.
But I will get to what you actually do in
these places. But I think one of the most interesting
things about what you do is that it's a It
grows out of your own experience, your own basically your
(01:52):
testimony of how you can get out of poverty.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah. Well, I think that's life's journey, you know. I
think God pushes through situations that can prepare here for
what he had purposed for your life case.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So the rough start that you had in life, you see,
has been almost like equipping you for this job that
you've had for decades now.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah. Well, I certainly gave me the mindset and the
and the commitment you know too, to engage in social action. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Tell us tell us a bit about your story. You
know where did you start life?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, I started life in Lower Hut actually in a
boys I am there and then got moved to Masterson.
The Boys I'm called essentially, and that's celebrating its one
hundredth year next year.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So an orphanage and do you and so no contact
with parents or family, not.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Not during those times in those institutions. Yet they didn't
call them authors, is John that accord him boys homes?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Right? Okay? And when you left that at I suppose
mid teens, did you have any anything backing you up?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
No. At fifteen helped us to exit from the institution,
found us a job, and then you were on your own.
So it was a very good start in learning how
to be self sufficient and independent.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Well, I'm going to introduce a sort of a leap
ahead in the story. By your thirties, you're a millionaire.
So what were the steps that you went through from
a boys home with nothing to being a millionaire in
your thirties.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Well, I started off with a hot dog stand outside
a football stadium in Masterton. I bought a franchise of
someone there and then threw that to two hot dog stands,
and then went through a series of small businesses. I
had done a home cookery and then a biscuit factory,
(04:21):
and then bikelup manufacturing and then food distribution.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And step by step.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, they grew. Yeah, they just screw. I don't know
why they grew, but they did.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
But I do a few things right.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, I had my The only strategy I had, John,
was that I would buy potential and sell potential. So
I'd buy something that which I thought had business, that
I thought had potential, and then grow it and sell
(04:59):
it to someone else who could take it to the
next stage. So that was the way of growing my
capital base.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Okay, so you jumped the ditch to Australia and changed
the line of work.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, they got very quickly. Got into the construction industry here,
and a friend in our church had been declared bankrupt,
and so I bought him to that business, and then
(05:37):
bought him out of that business, and then set up
some retail shops related to the construction products and grew
those businesses, set up a few construction companies.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Right. Can I just say, because I know something of
David's story, that this part of going from a boy's
home of nothing to being a millionaire by thirty it's
probably not as interesting as the next part of his life,
because at in your mid thirties you could have kicked
back and thought, I've got enough money I could retire.
I could sit on the golf course or on the
(06:15):
yacht or something. But a cyclone came along.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yeah, cyclone Tracey hit Darwin and I think Christmas Day
and seventy three or yeah. So the church that I
was involved in had some ministries up there, so I
put together a group of tradesmen and we went up
(06:42):
there and tried to help people get back into their houses.
So that was my first foray basically into.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Community development work, right, And then Darwin wasn't far enough
north for you.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, the church, the church that I was going to
in Darwin had a connection to a church in Indonesia
and the village there was a Christian village and they
had just gone through an earthquake which had destroyed their church.
So we responded to that call and Carroll, my wife
(07:25):
and our two children packed our bags, hopped on a
plane and walked a kilometers into the village where there
was no electricity or telephones or water or toilet working toilets,
and spent a few years there in the.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Village, a few years living in this place. So yeah,
that to go from a sort of a fairly affluent
country like Australia where you were, to the back blocks
of a third world country. I know Indonesia's come ahead
of it in the years since, but that must have
(08:06):
made you think a bit. And you obviously saw aid
work going on in various places, and you'd been involved
in aid work, but you came to some different conclusions
and had some different ideas about aid work and developed
the philosophy about it.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah, it was pretty new and development. We're working at
work when I was living in Indonesia, But what I
noticed was that the prevailing paradigm for aid work was
what I called basically the Robin order approach, that you
(08:47):
take from the wealthy and distributed to the poor. And
it occurred to me that that probably wasn't the most
sustainable way of addressing poverty alleviation. And I guess, because
(09:09):
I was gifted to be an entrepreneur, I look for
a market approach to helping people and decided that wealth
creation was a better approach and more effective than wealth distribution.
(09:30):
So I thought, how do you help people create wealth?
And obviously the answer to that is they need capital
and they need someone who will recognize the potential.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Okay, so what were your first steps in that direction?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Well, there was lots of people in the village that
we were living in who were either farmers or tradesmen
of some sort. So I just I happened to be
I'm friendly with one of those people, and he needed
(10:12):
some capital, so my loan is some cap one hundred
dollars and he bought a sewing machine. He put his
wife to work on the sewing machine, and then all
of a sudden he he had twelve sewing machines.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
And she would have been a woman. I take it
wasn't just her that was doing it all.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
That's right. He just had that entrepreneurial street also, and
he grew that business, and he got into rending out motorbikes,
and then a jewelry shop, and then a furniture factory,
and now his son runs that furniture factory.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
And it all started with a couple of hundred dollars
of seed money from from yourself, right, that's right, if
you just joined us. My guest tonight is David Boussou
and quite rightly he's been given all sorts of awards
Order Australia, the Instant Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award,
the Senior Australian of the Year Award. And when you
(11:16):
hear some of the things that he has done creating
the opportunities for people to create wealth and third world situations,
you'll be amazed. So it we'll be back with David
in just a.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Minute, intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on
News Talks.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Abe Neverything, every Burns star signal if Creasissprasis, welcome back
(12:01):
to real life. My guest tonight is David Bousso, who's
had a lifetime of creating opportunit unities for people to
become better off in third world countries. And we're listening
to some music that you picked there, David, I take
it that it's a Christian song.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, it is. But the reason I like that song
of the lyrics are a fantastic it's like an anthem
for me, but it was actually written in my house
by someone who was married with my granddaughter.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Your organization that you founded helped I think seven point
four million people last year, I think I saw on
your website.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yeah they did, and somebody didn't extrapolation that. Over the
last fifty years, we probably made over one hundred million
loans in something like twenty six countries. So it continues
to grow.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yes, so it's grown a lot from that one person's
sewing machine Indonesia to twenty six countries and all those
millions of loans. So basically you're a banker. Does it
work basically like a bank the things that you're.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Doing, Well, it's like a bank in that we make
access to capital the vehicle for helping people. But initially,
my in the very early days, my thought was how
(13:40):
do we help Christian churches and the members of Christian
churches generate more revenue?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Okay, your aid and your aid project. That wasn't limited
to Christians though, is it.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
That's right, yes, but it's the goal was how do
we help congregations generate more revenue so they can reduce
their dependency on the west right, which is the prevailing model.
Unfortunately with the missionary industry, was that it ended up
(14:21):
creating churches and planting churches that were West dependent. So
I was trying to get away from that model, and.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
That model that you came up with works and wider
communities as well. Who is it that you lend Who
is it that you lend your money to? These days?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Oh, well, it's predominantly women nowadays. I think it's about
ninety eight ninety seven and ninety eight percent of the
clients are women.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Why is that? Why do you lend mainly to women?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Well, it's unfortunately in many therboral countries, you find that
men had defaulted and the women just take the responsibilities
to become the income earner, and that they are more
(15:18):
responsible with whatever profits they make and put those profits
back into building and sustaining the family. So yeah, we
find that women are better loan recipients than men generally.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Right, and they turn that money into something productive. And
I've got to say, if you're running this as a
bank business, you'd be quite interested about getting some of
the getting that money back. What sort of default rate
do you get on your loans?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
We have about I think it's a two point three
percent default rate, right, and invariably it's because of disaster.
It's not very often default because of bad character. It's
(16:10):
usually some catastrophic event like a death of somebody who
has made a loan, who had received the loans. So yeah,
we have a very high return.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, that sort of challenges some of the stereotypes about
poor people.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
That's true, that's true. The other aspect of it, John,
that is very unique, as that we set up institutions
to make these loans, but when we capitalize them, they
(16:51):
leverage that capital and borrow commercially from other banks. So
if we inject a million dollars into a partner, they
can borrow five million commercially, so they're not but six million.
But they've used market finance to reshot out and impact the.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Plow and so they would never have been able to
get into a commercial bank initially because they had no collateral.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Well yeah, I mean often they don't even have a
pair of shoes to wear to get into the back, right,
But one of the criteria for a loaners that somebody
who doesn't have the collateral and the assets to guarantee
the loan. That's our plan.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So once they've got that step up, they can access
commercial stuff. And I have heard that there's a sort
of like a multiplier effect in the communities that you're
helping as well.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yeah, there is. We try to be holistic and what
we're doing because it's not just the transaction of a loan,
which is our goal. Our goal is to transform people's lives,
so we get involved in health and education and housing
(18:12):
and nutrition, different aspects of community development.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
What's the name of the organization that you that that
that you founded.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
It's called an Opportunity International.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Opportunities International, And where does it get its money? From
to be able to lend to everybody.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Let's from the public. There are donations and grants that
are made to the organization. I set up of support
officers in France, Germany, Switzerland, England, Sweden, Canada, and that
(18:57):
they raised the funds for the projects around the world.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
When people say put money into your bank to be loaned,
does it actually work like a bank that they can
get their money back eventually? I mean, do you actually
can people invest in your work or is it maybe.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
A go invariably if they want to tax deduction on
their grants and donation they can't get up to.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well text deduction is probably a good idea anyway. So
you put shoes on people's feet, you put food on
their table, you get their kids into school. What does
that do for communities or an individual sense of dignity
and self esteem?
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Well, it obviously raises their capacity to grow the business.
And in growing the business, what they're doing is creating
employment opportunities so that people who don't have a job
within the community it can now be active members of
(20:10):
their society and their local community and through that feed
their families and contribute to community activities as well. So
it's just a whole approach to creating wealth and making
that wealth stay in that community and generate jobs and
(20:37):
release people from the deprivation.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I mentioned earlier that you've received a lot of acknowledgment,
especially in your adopted country of Australia. We should perhaps
be claiming you back as a New Zealander and his
awards on this side of the Desmond too, you've been
Senior Australian of the Year and awarded the Order of
Australia and other awards. Obviously, you're not in it for
(21:01):
the rewards. What is in it for you? What do
you do? You do you? Why do you do this work?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Well, that's really a simple and yet a complex question.
I mean, basically, I believe that I was put on
the planet for a purpose and that purpose is being
now being lived out through the different ministries that I'm
(21:35):
involved in. So I don't I don't see it as
a calling. I see it as that I've been pushed
into what I was purposed to be on the planet,
and as long as I've stay connected to the vine,
then it's a beautifulful journey.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
It's interesting that you your idea of this being your
sort of Christian ministry didn't actually result in you doing
anything remarkably different. I mean, you were using the skills
that you had acquired as an entrepreneur and as a businessman.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Exactly. And I think for me, it's it's a joy,
you know, to be I'm the sort of person that
God intended for me to be, and it's I think
as as as we journey through life and say connected
(22:40):
to our creator, I think that's where you find the
fulfillment and why you're on the planet.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
You're talking about it being a joy. I bet at
times it's been tough and possibly even dangerous at times.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah, there's uh, that's another interesting aspect this. I'm always
that that risk that you you end up in places
that are are not safe. And I believe he.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Had a couple of bullets whistling past you at times.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
I have and Soweto that was an experience I had there.
But yeah, I mean I've survived some playing crashes, I've
been pirated, I've been mugged more times than I can
can remember, and yeah, life goes on.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And could I just say I can see David on
the Zoom call and he's got a big grin on
his face as he's describing being shot at and being
in plane crashes and being mugged, So there is obviously
something in what he's what he's doing. And David has
been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Or go out
on some boogie woogie music that I know that you love.
And and if people want to find out more about
(23:55):
your organization, I guess they can track you down on
the internet, opportunities international. It might just tick a box
of something in somebody's heart about what they want to do. David,
fantastic talking with you. I wish you all the best things.
Keep it being part of the shop.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
They little guill you stand there with the red dress on.
You come down up here where mister pine top is
our fazed audience. And when I tell you to hold yourself,
you get read to stop and don't move a peg.
(24:39):
And when I say get it, I want you to
shake that thing. Hold yourself now, shake that thing. That's
what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
For more from Used Talks, aid B listen live on
air or online and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News talk EDB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowen
on News talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Gooday, and welcome to Real Life. I'm John Cowen. There's
poverty in the world, with over eight hundred million surviving
or not surviving on less than three dollars a day,
and probably a billion more who never experienced a sense
of getting ahead. And if you think that one person
could never make a difference to those figures, then I
think my guest and I could change your mind. He's
(00:55):
done it for himself and he's gone on to help
literally millions of others get out of poverty. Welcome to
David Bassou.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah, thank you, Jean lovely to be on the line
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
I actually spoke with you twenty years ago and you
were already in your sixties then, and you told me
that you're never going to retire. You're in your eighties now.
Are you still working?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yes? Still working?
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Where have you been to most recently?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Most recent was Vietnam? It's just I'm love last week.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, okay, well that's a good hobby. For a man
in his eighties to be shooting around the world doing good.
But I will get to what you actually do in
these places. But I think one of the most interesting
things about what you do is that it's a It
grows out of your own experience, your own basically your
(01:52):
testimony of how you can get out of poverty.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah. Well, I think that's life's journey, you know. I
think God pushes through situations that can prepare here for
what he had purposed for your life case.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So the rough start that you had in life, you see,
has been almost like equipping you for this job that
you've had for decades now.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah. Well, I certainly gave me the mindset and the
and the commitment you know too, to engage in social action. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Tell us tell us a bit about your story. You
know where did you start life?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, I started life in Lower Hut actually in a
boys I am there and then got moved to Masterson.
The Boys I'm called essentially, and that's celebrating its one
hundredth year next year.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So an orphanage and do you and so no contact
with parents or family, not.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Not during those times in those institutions. Yet they didn't
call them authors, is John that accord him boys homes?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Right? Okay? And when you left that at I suppose
mid teens, did you have any anything backing you up?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
No. At fifteen helped us to exit from the institution,
found us a job, and then you were on your own.
So it was a very good start in learning how
to be self sufficient and independent.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Well, I'm going to introduce a sort of a leap
ahead in the story. By your thirties, you're a millionaire.
So what were the steps that you went through from
a boys home with nothing to being a millionaire in
your thirties.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Well, I started off with a hot dog stand outside
a football stadium in Masterton. I bought a franchise of
someone there and then threw that to two hot dog stands,
and then went through a series of small businesses. I
had done a home cookery and then a biscuit factory,
(04:21):
and then bikelup manufacturing and then food distribution.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And step by step.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yeah, they grew. Yeah, they just screw. I don't know
why they grew, but they did.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
But I do a few things right.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, I had my The only strategy I had, John,
was that I would buy potential and sell potential. So
I'd buy something that which I thought had business, that
I thought had potential, and then grow it and sell
(04:59):
it to someone else who could take it to the
next stage. So that was the way of growing my
capital base.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Okay, so you jumped the ditch to Australia and changed
the line of work.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, they got very quickly. Got into the construction industry here,
and a friend in our church had been declared bankrupt,
and so I bought him to that business, and then
(05:37):
bought him out of that business, and then set up
some retail shops related to the construction products and grew
those businesses, set up a few construction companies.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Right. Can I just say, because I know something of
David's story, that this part of going from a boy's
home of nothing to being a millionaire by thirty it's
probably not as interesting as the next part of his life,
because at in your mid thirties you could have kicked
back and thought, I've got enough money I could retire.
I could sit on the golf course or on the
(06:15):
yacht or something. But a cyclone came along.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Yeah, cyclone Tracey hit Darwin and I think Christmas Day
and seventy three or yeah. So the church that I
was involved in had some ministries up there, so I
put together a group of tradesmen and we went up
(06:42):
there and tried to help people get back into their houses.
So that was my first foray basically into.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Community development work, right, And then Darwin wasn't far enough
north for you.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, the church, the church that I was going to
in Darwin had a connection to a church in Indonesia
and the village there was a Christian village and they
had just gone through an earthquake which had destroyed their church.
So we responded to that call and Carroll, my wife
(07:25):
and our two children packed our bags, hopped on a
plane and walked a kilometers into the village where there
was no electricity or telephones or water or toilet working toilets,
and spent a few years there in the.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Village, a few years living in this place. So yeah,
that to go from a sort of a fairly affluent
country like Australia where you were, to the back blocks
of a third world country. I know Indonesia's come ahead
of it in the years since, but that must have
(08:06):
made you think a bit. And you obviously saw aid
work going on in various places, and you'd been involved
in aid work, but you came to some different conclusions
and had some different ideas about aid work and developed
the philosophy about it.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah, it was pretty new and development. We're working at
work when I was living in Indonesia, But what I
noticed was that the prevailing paradigm for aid work was
what I called basically the Robin order approach, that you
(08:47):
take from the wealthy and distributed to the poor. And
it occurred to me that that probably wasn't the most
sustainable way of addressing poverty alleviation. And I guess, because
(09:09):
I was gifted to be an entrepreneur, I look for
a market approach to helping people and decided that wealth
creation was a better approach and more effective than wealth distribution.
(09:30):
So I thought, how do you help people create wealth?
And obviously the answer to that is they need capital
and they need someone who will recognize the potential.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Okay, so what were your first steps in that direction?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Well, there was lots of people in the village that
we were living in who were either farmers or tradesmen
of some sort. So I just I happened to be
I'm friendly with one of those people, and he needed
(10:12):
some capital, so my loan is some cap one hundred
dollars and he bought a sewing machine. He put his
wife to work on the sewing machine, and then all
of a sudden he he had twelve sewing machines.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
And she would have been a woman. I take it
wasn't just her that was doing it all.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
That's right. He just had that entrepreneurial street also, and
he grew that business, and he got into rending out motorbikes,
and then a jewelry shop, and then a furniture factory,
and now his son runs that furniture factory.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
And it all started with a couple of hundred dollars
of seed money from from yourself, right, that's right, if
you just joined us. My guest tonight is David Boussou
and quite rightly he's been given all sorts of awards
Order Australia, the Instant Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award,
the Senior Australian of the Year Award. And when you
(11:16):
hear some of the things that he has done creating
the opportunities for people to create wealth and third world situations,
you'll be amazed. So it we'll be back with David
in just a.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Minute, intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on
News Talks.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Abe Neverything, every Burns star signal if Creasissprasis, welcome back
(12:01):
to real life. My guest tonight is David Bousso, who's
had a lifetime of creating opportunit unities for people to
become better off in third world countries. And we're listening
to some music that you picked there, David, I take
it that it's a Christian song.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, it is. But the reason I like that song
of the lyrics are a fantastic it's like an anthem
for me, but it was actually written in my house
by someone who was married with my granddaughter.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Your organization that you founded helped I think seven point
four million people last year, I think I saw on
your website.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Yeah they did, and somebody didn't extrapolation that. Over the
last fifty years, we probably made over one hundred million
loans in something like twenty six countries. So it continues
to grow.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yes, so it's grown a lot from that one person's
sewing machine Indonesia to twenty six countries and all those
millions of loans. So basically you're a banker. Does it
work basically like a bank the things that you're.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Doing, Well, it's like a bank in that we make
access to capital the vehicle for helping people. But initially,
my in the very early days, my thought was how
(13:40):
do we help Christian churches and the members of Christian
churches generate more revenue?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Okay, your aid and your aid project. That wasn't limited
to Christians though, is it.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
That's right, yes, but it's the goal was how do
we help congregations generate more revenue so they can reduce
their dependency on the west right, which is the prevailing model.
Unfortunately with the missionary industry, was that it ended up
(14:21):
creating churches and planting churches that were West dependent. So
I was trying to get away from that model, and.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
That model that you came up with works and wider
communities as well. Who is it that you lend Who
is it that you lend your money to? These days?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Oh, well, it's predominantly women nowadays. I think it's about
ninety eight ninety seven and ninety eight percent of the
clients are women.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Why is that? Why do you lend mainly to women?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Well, it's unfortunately in many therboral countries, you find that
men had defaulted and the women just take the responsibilities
to become the income earner, and that they are more
(15:18):
responsible with whatever profits they make and put those profits
back into building and sustaining the family. So yeah, we
find that women are better loan recipients than men generally.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Right, and they turn that money into something productive. And
I've got to say, if you're running this as a
bank business, you'd be quite interested about getting some of
the getting that money back. What sort of default rate
do you get on your loans?
Speaker 3 (15:49):
We have about I think it's a two point three
percent default rate, right, and invariably it's because of disaster.
It's not very often default because of bad character. It's
(16:10):
usually some catastrophic event like a death of somebody who
has made a loan, who had received the loans. So yeah,
we have a very high return.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Yeah, that sort of challenges some of the stereotypes about
poor people.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
That's true, that's true. The other aspect of it, John,
that is very unique, as that we set up institutions
to make these loans, but when we capitalize them, they
(16:51):
leverage that capital and borrow commercially from other banks. So
if we inject a million dollars into a partner, they
can borrow five million commercially, so they're not but six million.
But they've used market finance to reshot out and impact the.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Plow and so they would never have been able to
get into a commercial bank initially because they had no collateral.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Well yeah, I mean often they don't even have a
pair of shoes to wear to get into the back, right,
But one of the criteria for a loaners that somebody
who doesn't have the collateral and the assets to guarantee
the loan. That's our plan.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
So once they've got that step up, they can access
commercial stuff. And I have heard that there's a sort
of like a multiplier effect in the communities that you're
helping as well.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yeah, there is. We try to be holistic and what
we're doing because it's not just the transaction of a loan,
which is our goal. Our goal is to transform people's lives,
so we get involved in health and education and housing
(18:12):
and nutrition, different aspects of community development.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
What's the name of the organization that you that that
that you founded.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
It's called an Opportunity International.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Opportunities International, And where does it get its money? From
to be able to lend to everybody.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Let's from the public. There are donations and grants that
are made to the organization. I set up of support
officers in France, Germany, Switzerland, England, Sweden, Canada, and that
(18:57):
they raised the funds for the projects around the world.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
When people say put money into your bank to be loaned,
does it actually work like a bank that they can
get their money back eventually? I mean, do you actually
can people invest in your work or is it maybe.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
A go invariably if they want to tax deduction on
their grants and donation they can't get up to.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Well text deduction is probably a good idea anyway. So
you put shoes on people's feet, you put food on
their table, you get their kids into school. What does
that do for communities or an individual sense of dignity
and self esteem?
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Well, it obviously raises their capacity to grow the business.
And in growing the business, what they're doing is creating
employment opportunities so that people who don't have a job
within the community it can now be active members of
(20:10):
their society and their local community and through that feed
their families and contribute to community activities as well. So
it's just a whole approach to creating wealth and making
that wealth stay in that community and generate jobs and
(20:37):
release people from the deprivation.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
I mentioned earlier that you've received a lot of acknowledgment,
especially in your adopted country of Australia. We should perhaps
be claiming you back as a New Zealander and his
awards on this side of the Desmond too, you've been
Senior Australian of the Year and awarded the Order of
Australia and other awards. Obviously, you're not in it for
(21:01):
the rewards. What is in it for you? What do
you do? You do you? Why do you do this work?
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Well, that's really a simple and yet a complex question.
I mean, basically, I believe that I was put on
the planet for a purpose and that purpose is being
now being lived out through the different ministries that I'm
(21:35):
involved in. So I don't I don't see it as
a calling. I see it as that I've been pushed
into what I was purposed to be on the planet,
and as long as I've stay connected to the vine,
then it's a beautifulful journey.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
It's interesting that you your idea of this being your
sort of Christian ministry didn't actually result in you doing
anything remarkably different. I mean, you were using the skills
that you had acquired as an entrepreneur and as a businessman.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Exactly. And I think for me, it's it's a joy,
you know, to be I'm the sort of person that
God intended for me to be, and it's I think
as as as we journey through life and say connected
(22:40):
to our creator, I think that's where you find the
fulfillment and why you're on the planet.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
You're talking about it being a joy. I bet at
times it's been tough and possibly even dangerous at times.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah, there's uh, that's another interesting aspect this. I'm always
that that risk that you you end up in places
that are are not safe. And I believe he.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Had a couple of bullets whistling past you at times.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
I have and Soweto that was an experience I had there.
But yeah, I mean I've survived some playing crashes, I've
been pirated, I've been mugged more times than I can
can remember, and yeah, life goes on.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And could I just say I can see David on
the Zoom call and he's got a big grin on
his face as he's describing being shot at and being
in plane crashes and being mugged, So there is obviously
something in what he's what he's doing. And David has
been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Or go out
on some boogie woogie music that I know that you love.
And and if people want to find out more about
(23:55):
your organization, I guess they can track you down on
the internet, opportunities international. It might just tick a box
of something in somebody's heart about what they want to do. David,
fantastic talking with you. I wish you all the best things.
Keep it being part of the shop.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
They little guill you stand there with the red dress on.
You come down up here where mister pine top is
our fazed audience. And when I tell you to hold yourself,
you get read to stop and don't move a peg.
(24:39):
And when I say get it, I want you to
shake that thing. Hold yourself now, shake that thing. That's
what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
For more from Used Talks, aid B listen live on
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