ISCOVER
The majors are earning stronger satisfaction ratings from brokers and seeing increased broker usage.
Major banks are defending their market dominance based on broker usage, according to new research.
The latest monthly Broker Pulse survey from Agile Market Intelligence found that Australia and New Zealand Banking Corporation (ANZ) took the lead as the most commonly used lender, with 52 per cent of brokers working with them in June, up from 49 per cent in May.
Broker usage also increased at Westpac, where it grew from 30 per cent in May to 36 per cent in June.
At Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), broker usage slipped from 35 per cent to 33 per cent over the month, but remained up on the 30 per cent seen in April.
Broker usage also edged lower at National Australia Bank (NAB), from 34 per cent to 29 per cent over the month.
Macquarie Bank continued to comfortably have the strongest presence outside of the big four, with 43 per cent of brokers using the lender in June, although this dropped 7 per cent compared to May.
Big 4 boost broker experience
As the big four banks compete for market share, they are adopting varied approaches to meet the changing expectations of brokers.
They are heavily investing in their proprietary channels to regain ground from the broker channel, according to recent S&P Global Ratings research.
NAB has described proprietary lending as one of its “key priorities”, while CBA told The Adviser in May that it was tweaking its broker strategy, aiming to reverse a recent decline in broker-originated home loans.
For June, brokers gave all of the majors improved ratings, although many non-majors received comfortably superior scores.
ANZ scored a rating of 83 per cent, jumping from 68 per cent the prior month.
Westpac increased its score by 2 per cent to 82 per cent, while NAB’s rating rose by 3 per cent to 89 per cent. CBA’s rating inched up 1 per cent to 81 per cent.
All four beat the average score of 69 per cent, but were below Macquarie (97 per cent), ME Bank (96 per cent), and Bankwest (94 per cent).
Separate research from Agile Market Intelligence revealed significant changes in what brokers value when recommending lenders, which could explain shifting perceptions in how brokers view the majors.
Majors retain mortgage market share at AFG
Brokers at the aggregator Australian Finance Group (AFG) are still turning to the big four banks to lodge around three-fifths of their home loans.
The group’s latest Mortgage Index, which covered AFG broker activity for 4Q25 (ending 30 June), showed that AFG brokers used non-majors for 40.3 per cent of their home loan lodgements, down from 42.8 per cent a year before.
However, the 40.3 per cent share was slightly higher than 40.1 per cent in the prior quarter.
The AFG Index showed that while the major banks have broadly lost market share since 2016–2017, when they regularly held over 70 per cent, they have largely maintained a 60 per cent share of the mortgage market since 2020.
Among all mortgage types, majors had the strongest market hold of upgrader volume mortgages, where they loaned money for 60.8 per cent of mortgages lodged by brokers at AFG, up from 56.7 per cent a year before.
Year on year, the big four banks and their associated brands also grew market share for first home buyer volumes, up from 66.5 per cent to 68.6 per cent.
Similarly, the share of refinancing volumes loaned by the big four went up from 53.4 per cent to 55.5 per cent in the year.
The only mortgage type where non-major lenders gained market share for AFG-lodged home loans was for investor volumes, where they grew their share marginally to 42.9 per cent from 42.8 per cent in the year.
AFG brokers lodged a record $27 billion in home loans in the June quarter, a new quarterly record for the group.
[Related: What do brokers think of the major banks?]
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