Banks continue to dominate lending

According to RFi’s Australian Mortgage Market Wrap, Australia’s banks managed to growth their market share from 92.6 per cent to 94.1 per cent between October and November 2012.

This marked the fourth consecutive month of increase in banks’ share of value of owner-occupied lending commitments, with the value of banks’ owner-occupied lending commitments accelerating faster than total value.  

The combined market share of the big four remained steady at 85.2 per cent between October and November.

As such, the rise in bank market share can be attributed to Australia’s non-major lenders.

This, however, would come as a surprise to few people in the industry since many of Australia’s non-majors have been going from strength to strength over the past few months, with several introducing new products, waiving application fees or offering incentives to potential refinancers.

Speaking to The Adviser, Bankwest’s Ian Rakhit said the non-majors have really stepped up their game, suggesting they are hungry for business.

“I simply cannot fault the level of competition out there in the market and the level of choice for brokers at the moment,” he said.

“We have stepped largely away from the channel throughout 2012, but we are keen to let brokers know that we are back and ready for business.

“Traditionally, we have accounted for almost 9 per cent of all loans written through the broker market and we want to get back to that. If we could be touching 9 per cent again, that would mean a significant increase in our current level of business.

“I am under no illusion that it will be tough for us to get back into the market, but I believe we have the people, the products, the policy and the back-office abilities to be able to handle additional business.”

Mr Rakhit went on to to say that Bankwest may introduce commission-based incentives later this year in a bid to increase its market share and establish itself as a true competitor with the majors.