Broker Pulse Residential Lending wrap-up: October 2024

The October 2024 Broker Pulse report sheds light on the residential lending market, capturing broker sentiment and lender performance across major lending categories. Here's a closer look at the month’s key insights.

Broker Flows

Broker flows is the measure of broker-originated applications for the month—where the traffic of broker-originated applications flow within the lender market. ‍

Like last month, Macquarie Bank remains the most-used lender in October 2024, continuing its long-standing leadership in broker preference. Following Macquarie, major banks—ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, and NAB—dominate broker activity and make up a significant portion of broker flows.

Decision Drivers

Major banks’ product pricing as a decision driver is up month-on-month, but the primary motivator for this lender type is still client circumstances.‍

Non-major banks also saw an increase month-on-month for product pricing as a decision driver.‍

Notably, ease of use is decreasing as a motivating factor for both major and non-major banks but is increasing for non-banks over the past three months. If ease and convenience is growing more important for brokers and their clients, this could be something to watch out for. 

Turnaround Times

Large ADIs

A slight improvement on September 2024, large ADIs had an average turnaround time of 3.5 days in October 2024. The fastest lender was Macquarie, with 2 days—the same as the previous two months. Also consistent were the other top two performers, with average turnaround times of 3 business days. Second and third-fastest turnaround times belong to St George Bank (previous month of 3 days), and ING (previous month of 4 days).

The slowest large ADI in October was AMP Bank. In September, the lender had an average turnaround time of 6 business days, which worsened in October to 8 business days.

Small ADIs

Also showing improvement, the average turnaround time for small ADIs got faster month-on-month, from 5.9 to 5.2 business days (just over a week to initial credit decision). ‍

Most small ADIs showed faster turnaround times, with UBank leading the way with an average of 2 business days. BCU halved their average turnaround time from the previous month to 3 business days from 6.‍

However, Auswide Bank, HSBC, Heritage Bank, and Newcastle Permanent had slower average turnaround times than the previous month. ‍

Non-ADIs

Like large and small ADIs, non-ADIs saw an improvement in turnaround times in October 2024, down to an average of 4.1 business days.

The three lenders with the fastest turnaround time were the same as the previous month. Advantage, AFG Home Loans, and Connective Home Loans all had an average of 3 days, just like in September 2024.

Still trailing behind, La Trobe Financial, had a turnaround time of 7 business days, slightly better than the previous month’s 8.

Experience

We ask about broker satisfaction at each stage of the process—BDM, application, assessment, and settlement. We calculate a lender’s experience rating as the average percentage of satisfaction across these stages.‍

We also further average these scores across the past three months to smooth out peaks and valleys for a more comprehensive understanding of broker satisfaction.‍

Large ADIs

When it comes to average broker satisfaction, Macquarie still leads the pack for large ADIs, with an average satisfaction rating of 94% over the past three months.‍

Again, Bankwest (92%), ING (87%), and ME Bank (86%) follow, with AMP lagging, at just 69% satisfaction.

Small ADIs

Like large ADIs, small ADIs are consistent when it comes to broker experience. The leading lender in this group is again Great Southern Bank with a 3-month average satisfaction of 85%.‍

Though the leading lender is the same month-on-month, the rest of the rankings have experienced some change. P&N takes second-highest satisfaction rating at 83%. UBank, Bank Australia, and Newcastle Permanent aren’t far behind, with 82%, 81%, and 80% satisfaction ratings, respectively.

Non-ADIs

In October 2024, AFG Home Loans led the pack, with a satisfaction rating of 91%. While the previous month’s leading lender, Connective Home Loans, dropped down to an 88% average satisfaction rating.

Last month we commented that of all three groups, non-ADIs had the most fluctuation in satisfaction ratings, which we can see is still the case in October. This fluctuation may be concerning for brokers and borrowers looking for consistency.

About this survey

This month, Broker Pulse surveyed 308 residential brokers between the 1st and 18th of November 2024 to uncover their experiences with lenders through October 2024. The survey asks participating brokers to share their experiences with the lenders they've used throughout the month. Brokers are asked to rate each lender's turnaround times, credit assessment staff, BDMs and their overall experience. Broker responses are aggregated each month and distributed back to participating brokers and lenders to enable transparency across the market with the goal of improving consumer outcomes. This community-driven initiative is powered by brokers who want to unlock the collective experiences of their fellow brokers to make more informed decisions.