The Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s broker channel gained ground in new lending over the year, with the post-budget slowdown reshaping mortgage demand.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), the nation’s largest home lender, revealed in its financial year 2026 results that broker-originated loans accounted for 49 per cent of new home lending in FY26, even as total mortgage applications fell 15 per cent following the May federal budget.
The broker share of CBA’s new home-loan business rose to 49 per cent from 46 per cent a year earlier, while the proprietary share declined from 54 to 51 per cent.
The shift comes despite the bank’s multi-year effort to favour its direct channel, which it said generates materially higher returns than broker-written loans.
CBA said proprietary-originated mortgages remain 20–30 per cent more profitable after accounting for upfront and trail commissions.
However, the bank’s broker share remains lower across the overall portfolio, where proprietary channels account for 54 per cent of the home-loan book and brokers account for 46 per cent.
CBA originated $95 billion in new home loans in FY26, up from $85 billion a year earlier, with the average loan size rising to $503,000 from $490,000.
Its total mortgage balances, including Bankwest, increased to $680 billion at June 2026, up from $659 billion six months earlier and $634 billion at June 2025, across 1.9 million accounts.
However, growth slowed in the second half, with home lending rising 3.1 per cent, slightly below system growth of 3.3 per cent.
Investors pull back harder
CBA said mortgage applications were 17 per cent lower at June 2026 than at the same point a year earlier, with the decline most pronounced among investors.
The bank noted that investor applications had fallen 28 per cent since the May budget, compared with a 9 per cent decline in owner-occupier applications.
New lending also became more weighted towards owner occupiers, who represented 61 per cent of new flows, up from 59 per cent a year earlier.
Investor lending fell to 39 per cent of new flows from 41 per cent and across CBA’s total portfolio, owner occupiers made up 67 per cent of lending while investors represented 32 per cent
The bank said higher interest rates and the federal government’s tax changes had reduced borrowing capacity for single owner occupiers, single investors and joint owner occupiers.
Its minimum assessment floor rose to 11.80 per cent at June 2026, from 11.30 per cent a year earlier.
CBA chief executive Matt Comyn said the softer market was an unavoidable consequence of measures designed to slow housing activity and credit growth.
“There are consequences of less housing growth, and we have just got to accept that,” Comyn said.
Comyn added that the policy agenda needed to be viewed through the longer-term objective of improving fairness between generations, even where the immediate effect was to dampen activity.
“[But] intergenerational equity is important. The government have embarked on a lot of structural budget repair ... [and] made changes to tax on capital gains, negative gearing, trusts, [and] some changes to income tax – and, ideally, we’d like to see more there,” he outlined.
“Businesses should be prepared to advocate for policies that may, in the near term, not have a positive impact on their PNL [profit and loss].”
Fixed-rate demand lifts
The composition of CBA’s new mortgage flows also changed during the second half.
Variable-rate loans represented 93 per cent of new lending in 2H26, down from 99 per cent in both 1H26 and 2H25, while fixed-rate loans rose to 7 per cent of new flows, from 1 per cent in the first half.
While variable lending remains overwhelmingly dominant, the increase in fixed-rate borrowing points to a greater appetite among some customers for repayment certainty after higher rates and reduced borrowing capacity.
CBA said applications had begun to stabilise after reaching a post-budget low at the end of June, with Comyn noting that the bank was seeing an early improvement in activity in the opening week of August.
“You can see it’s basically stabilising, and starting slightly to pick up,” Comyn said.
“Typically, in a lower growth environment, that is often accompanied by higher periods of competitive intensity.”
Arrears edge higher
CBA’s results also showed emerging signs of pressure in household credit performance, although most borrowers retained sizeable repayment buffers.
At June 2026, 35 per cent of CBA mortgage customers were at least two years ahead on repayments, while a further 8 per cent were between one and two years ahead.
Another 7 per cent were six to 12 months ahead, 7 per cent were three to six months ahead and 13 per cent were one to three months ahead.
The proportion one month ahead fell to 16 per cent, from 19 per cent a year earlier, while 14 per cent of borrowers were on time with their repayments.
Home-loan arrears of 90 days or more rose to 0.73 per cent, while 30-day-plus arrears reached 1.33 per cent.
Troublesome and non-performing exposures increased to 0.94 per cent at June 2026, up from 0.89 per cent at December 2025.
CBA said $0.4 billion of non-performing or not-well-secured home loans were concentrated in Victoria, which accounted for 53 per cent, and NSW, which made up 33 per cent.
Loan-impairment expenses rose 8.5 per cent to $788 million in FY26 and were 47 per cent higher than in the first half.
Yet negative equity remained low at 0.5 per cent of the portfolio, while interest-only loans represented 12 per cent.
CBA reported a 7 per cent rise in profit to $10.98 billion.
[Related: Mortgage applications fall at Westpac as proprietary share dips]
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