THE START
Founded in Karratha.
Clinton Burns founded Pilbara Finance to serve the people Karratha was built around — miners, contractors, sole traders, regional families — and the kinds of files the major banks weren't equipped to assess properly. Rolling rosters didn't fit standard servicing calculators. Sole-trader income looked complicated on paper. Pilbara wages got benchmarked against city assumptions. The first clients were people who'd been told no, or quoted less than they needed, and wanted someone to work the file properly.
HITTING OUR STRIDE
Mining-sector income became our specialty.
Site allowances, LAFHA, two-and-one rosters, overtime that doesn't average cleanly across a tax return — these are the details that decide whether a mining-sector borrower gets the loan they should or the loan a generic calculator allows. We learned which lenders weight which parts of mining income properly. We built relationships with the BDMs who'd back well-prepared submissions. We got fast at packaging the harder files. It earned us a reputation in the camps, and that work still makes up a meaningful share of what we do today.
GOING NATIONAL
Pilbara roots, national reach.
Mining is a mobile industry. Our clients took roles on Queensland coal projects, Victorian construction sites, NT remote camps — and they kept calling. We kept helping. Today our files cross every state and territory: first-home buyers in Brisbane, refinancing clients in Adelaide, business owners in regional NSW, alongside the WA workload that's still our home base. The geography changed; the way we work didn't.
BEYOND HOME LOANS
Our clients grew. The brokerage did too.
The original clients had families, careers, and ambitions that didn't stop at a first mortgage. They came back for investment property, business funding, equipment finance, refinancing when the rates moved. Pilbara Finance grew into a full-service brokerage because the relationships asked for it — home, commercial and specialist lending handled under the same roof. Same brokers, same approach, broader scope.
TODAY
Boutique by design.
We've stayed deliberately small. Same owner, same core team, same direct line our first clients had. There's no investor pushing growth targets, no acquisition queue, no exit on the horizon. The clients we worked with five years ago still call us — for the next purchase, the kids' first home loan, the business expansion. Small enough to know your file. Long enough to still be here next time you call.