Jaime Savory established GFS with a clear goal in mind. Twelve years on, her focus hasn’t changed
- Name: Gippsland Finance Solutions
- Headcount: 20
- Established: 2014
- Offices: Bairnsdale, Traralgon, Warragul, Sale
- Services offered: Home loans, investment loans, SMSF loans, commercial and business loans
Life can be pretty good in Lake’s Entrance, the scenic coastal town nestled in Victoria’s East Gippsland region. Kilometres of white sandy beaches stretch along the Tasman Sea, while a vast network of inland waterways provides endless opportunity for water sports, hiking and wildlife spotting.
Head into town and you can find some of the freshest seafood in all of Victoria, prized by tourists and locals alike. But while oysters and local wine are in abundance, there is one thing missing in this desirable slice of oceanside living – banks, and not the sand kind.
Following numerous branch closures, just two banks now serve Lake’s Entrance’s 5,000‑plus residents, making it a textbook case of regional Australia’s shrinking access to finance.
What happens, say, when a first home buyer, new to the world of mortgage finance and needing guidance, is unable to secure a loan at either of the two branches available to them? Do they just give up?
It’s a scenario that Jaime Savory, founder of brokerage Gippsland Finance Solutions (GFS), hears about all too often.
It’s also a perplexingly modern contradiction: Why, when populations are increasing and the need for finance has never been higher, are banks shutting their branches?
“It just didn’t make any sense to me,” says Savory. So she set out to create a mini mortgage broking empire in the Gippsland region by stepping up for homebuyers when so many banks had shipped out.
It’s little wonder that GFS has had such resounding success since Savory opened her first office in Bairnsdale 12 years ago. Today it spans four offices housing a star team of predominantly female brokers. In fact, GFS’s 20‑plus team of finance experts includes just one bloke (for now) – Jaime’s husband, Heath.
GFS has become something of an incubator for regionally based women entering the finance industry. The brokerage’s latest recruit, for instance, is a single mother of three hoping to reignite her career.
Since founding GFS back in 2014, Savory’s passion for bringing finance solutions to regional communities has not wavered one bit.
GFS’s success is built on a simple philosophy: “It’s all about the relationship. Clients want a relationship, and that’s the culture we have at GFS. You can walk into any of our offices, or we can meet you wherever you are.”
That’s a far cry from the modern digital banking landscape, where customers are, to use Savory’s words, dealing with “some random in a Sydney high‑rise … they’re just not comfortable with that”.
“You shouldn’t have to pick between being a mum, having a career and living in the country versus living in the city,” says Savory. “I’m pretty passionate about giving mums an option to be able to do that.”
Savory calls “rubbish” on the idea that you must move to Melbourne or Sydney to make good money in a successful career. She should know.
Grit and determination
GFS was born out of both frustration and conviction. Savory was working at a major bank when, during maternity leave with her second child, she was asked to return early. A disagreement over how that return would look – particularly around flexibility – ensued, and she realised the bank’s expectations no longer aligned with her own ethics and priorities.
The vibe was well and truly off.
Savory resigned in December and, the following January, opened GFS in Bairnsdale with modest ambitions: work three days a week, “pay for the groceries” and preserve a genuine work‑life balance.
Within a month she discovered she was pregnant again. “How the heck am I going to do this?” Savory recalls thinking to herself. Indeed, preparing for a third child on one hand and running a startup business on the other is not for the faint of heart.
Read more: Shine the spotlight on standout women in your mortgage network now
Nonetheless, GFS went from strength to strength, with loan volumes going through the roof.
A defining moment came when Savory had to hire her first admin person.
“I was terrified of employing someone,” Savory says. “I was thinking, now I don’t just need to worry about putting food on my table; I’ve got this whole other family that I have to equate for. It took me years to build up the courage to do that.”
Today, GFS is not just a local institution; it’s an essential one. Clients – whether first home buyers, farmers or seasoned investors – can have that face‑to‑face contact that’s unfortunately getting harder to come by these days.
And as bank branches dry up, GFS is only becoming bigger. Having built three offices from scratch in Bairnsdale, Traralgon and Warragul, GFS opened a fourth shop in Sale in late 2025.
This was “a little bit different than the other three startups we did”, says Savory, because it was an acquisition of an existing business rather than a de novo office.
Savory says she is regularly approached to buy regional Victorian books of business, but is highly selective, only considering those that fit GFS’s culture and clientele and align with how the firm wants to look after its clients. She won’t, for example, buy “a huge book of commercial clients that don’t ever want to be contacted”, because “that’s just not what we do”.
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Did Savory ever envision GFS would grow to the size it is now? “Absolutely not. That was never the plan. But in saying that, if I knew what I know now, I would have done it earlier.”
Now, GFS is preparing for its next major milestone: a second bloke is about to join the team.
“Do I actively seek out women? No, but do they naturally come to us? Absolutely,” says Savory.
City to sea
Gippsland Finance Solutions (GFS) has seen a rise in sea‑change clients since COVID‑19, many of them selling $2 million homes in Melbourne to relocate to coastal Gippsland towns where properties cost less.
That shift has driven demand for bridging finance – a product founder Jaime Savory says the brokerage “hardly” used to write in regional Victoria. But serving those clients brings its own challenges.
Many bridging finance providers impose strict postcode restrictions and won’t lend in regional areas, forcing GFS to rely heavily on non‑standard lenders that are more flexible. The ability to access these specialist lenders allows GFS to deliver “a different offering to rural clients that some of the majors just can’t do”.
