GE Capital may be trimming and reorganising its business in Australia and the firm may have incurred losses from selling out of some businesses, but its aspirations don't appear to be all that different from prior years."[From] the financial results I've seen we've been able to outperform some of our peers in this market," Steve Sargent, country head for GE in Australia, told a conference call for reporters yesterday."When I look at this market here I am excited going forward. This is an important market for us."It's a market where … we plan to increase the capital we have invested down here. We think we have the core set of businesses [and are] able to play a competitive role in the market."When I look at the landscape on the other side of this … it's largely going to be the big four and ourselves. There's an opportunity to position ourselves in this market as the alternative to the big four."Asked to comment on recent trading conditions in the commercial finance segment, Sargent said, "We did new loan volume and new lease volume that was very selective. We lent several billion dollars, but less than we were before."That was basically because, while we had sufficient liquidity - we'd raised extra equity in October - we were being deliberately sure to de-lever the balance sheet somewhat, and that's one of the reasons we exited auto finance at that time."In the commercial finance business there has been no material increase in loan losses over the last, say, quarter to six months."We are seeing some increase in deleveraging [by clients]. Remember, we are largely a secured lender. We also play in the leveraged finance space."Sargent said there were some defaults, and while asset values were holding in some niches, such as mining equipment and trucks, they were in decline in others such as commercial real estate and cars."In terms of new volume it's pretty quiet. The first quarter is pretty quiet. "I expect Australia is going to be experiencing its credit crunch in the first half of this year as corporations try to refinance.    "The banks we compete with will try to reduce their exposure to companies."Speaking of foreign banks in Australia Sargent said, "They may well try to reduce their exposure and try to take their capital back to their own country, where in  most cases they are owned by their governments."That leaves a lot of opportunity for us."