AUSTRALIA'S big four banks are facing an assault on their valuable farm client base as second tier agribusiness bankers make an all out bid to beef up lending and financial service competition in the bush.
Cashed up after absorbing a flood of deposits in the past few years, names like Bankwest, Suncorp Metway Bank, BankSA, Rural Bank and Bank of Queensland are offering to match or tailor similar deals to those available from the big corporate names.
As an extra sweetener they also promote themselves as being smaller, more customer-focused institutions with a special empathy for regional Australia's farmers, small businesses and mums and dads.
Suncorp - already a big name in Queensland agribusiness - has just upgraded its fast rebounding rural portfolio by appointing a national executive manager for agribusiness as it expands its representation in other States.
Bankwest has been in overdrive for the past six months promoting its rural credentials in the bush with a well-received advertising campaign centred on testimonial support from six successful family farming enterprises around Australia.
The WA-based bank's drive to lift its profile and highlight its close relationship with rural clients has stirred strong feedback and new business, notably in Victoria.
Next month Rural Bank, a hybrid banker with strong ties to the Elders farm service branch network and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, starts spreading its footprint even further by offering deposit and loan services via specially trained staff at Australia Post offices in regional cities and towns in NSW.
Rural Bank, which relies on other businesses to act as its shop front, also extended its network to Ray White Rural agencies in 2010 and now has staff trained in 60 per cent of the company's 70-plus "rural" branches, mostly in eastern Australia.
While the big names in agribusiness banking - ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank (NAB), Westpac and global agribanking king pin, Rabobank - are also intensifying their efforts to win more business, the smaller players say plenty of regional customers are pleased to make a break from corporate banks.
Suncorp's new national agribusiness boss, Greg Leahy, said his bank grew its agribusiness lending portfolio almost four per cent last financial year while the overall farm lending market actually contracted about four per cent.
"Our lending growth is following a similar trend again this year, and we're in an extremely well-funded position to get cash out the door if it's needed," he said.
Suncorp Bank's chief executive officer, David Foster, said Mr Leahy's new national role sent a clear message that Suncorp was a serious agribusiness player.
The bank is pleased its relatively "small and personal" approach to business has won it a good variety of new rural clients in the past year, rather than just relying on a nucleus of big spenders to grow its loan book.
"Small to medium sized enterprises, including a lot of ordinary farmers, may not have really big borrowings, but they're the largest customer area out there and they want a strong banking service," Mr Leahy said.
"Farmers like that we tend to do things a bit differently.
"We deliberately restrict the size of our managers' portfolios so they have more time to spend with clients, getting to know the farm, and working out the family's financial strategies.
"At the same time, being a smaller bank we don't have the bureaucracy the bigger players have to deal with."
NSW and the Western Australian wheatbelt were key targets for Suncorp, which was likely to double it agribusiness branch numbers to four in the west by year's end.
Rural Bank's chief executive officer, Paul Hutchinson, said although agribusiness borrowers were conspicuously cautious at present - partly because the property market was slow - a big pool of savings accumulated by banks in the past year had generated a lot of new money available for lending, promoting plenty of competitive tactics among lenders.
Rural Bank draws about 90pc of its loan funds from its own savings deposits.
"FMD's (farm management deposit) were very successful for us last financial year - we have a lot of money available," Mr Hutchinson said.
And while competitive interest rates were important to rural borrowers, he said research showed that a quality relationship with the bank manager had become an even more important issue for farmers in the past 18 months.
"Farmers want more consistency and not a fair weather friend in banking," he said.
"They don't like ebbing and tiding, they like empathy and a close understanding of what they are doing.
"We're encouraged by that message - it's a positive sign for us."