Lender spotlight: Commonwealth Bank (September 2024)

The September 2024 Broker Pulse report offers insights into how brokers view the Commonwealth Bank, particularly as they navigate challenges and advantages when working with the lender. We’re looking at the positives and negatives brokers share in the Broker Pulse to understand how they feel about working with Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA).

The relationship between CBA and brokers

To understand how brokers feel about CBA, it’s important to note that in August, the CEO of Commonwealth Bank drew some ire, as he called for a cap on broker commissions. The Adviser reported on the CEO’s comments, and further spoke to the managing director of the Finance Brokers Association of Australia (FBAA), Peter White AM, quoting “Dragging brokers into this conversation is a smoke screen for their own bad bank behaviours.”

If other brokers feel similarly to the MD of the FBAA, it makes sense that they would have an overall negative sentiment around working CBA.

Broker usage

Despite some negative sentiment, brokers still frequently work with CBA. In the September 2024 Broker Pulse, 41% of all brokers surveyed indicated that they had worked with CBA that month. A significant market share for a lender with a CEO who may have ostracised some brokers.

The broker usage for September 2024 is up from the same time the year before, which sat at 30%. 

Service levels

Net Promoter Score

The most notable change for Commonwealth Bank over the last 12 months is a steady decline in Net Promoter Score. Year-on-year, this lender has moved from a score of +53 to a score of +16. While this is still a positive score—meaning the good still outweighs the bad—it’s certainly not what anyone wants or expects to see from one of Australia’s most prominent lenders.

Broker experience

Brokers highlighted their experiences across key stages of the lending journey: scenario, application, assessment, and settlement phases. While each stage has its high points, overall satisfaction is on a downward trend. The Assessment stage has seen the steepest decline, with brokers increasingly reporting dissatisfaction.

However, when it comes to turnaround times, CBA is doing better year-on-year. The same month in 2023, Commonwealth Bank had an average turnaround time of five business days, meaning a broker would be waiting up to an entire week, on average. While reducing the turnaround time by a single day may seem small, it can make a big difference for busy brokers and their clients.

Broker experiences

BDMs

Commonwealth Bank’s Business Development Managers (BDMs) emerged as a key strength, with positive broker sentiment surrounding their flexibility and supportive approach. BDMs play a vital role in supporting brokers by guiding them through complex lending scenarios, credit policies, and client management. In the September Broker Pulse feedback, several brokers emphasised the helpfulness and adaptability of Commonwealth Bank's BDMs:

“Flexible credit and great BDMs.”

“Good lender, good policies, and helpful BDM.”

“Average experience. It was not always easy to find the info I needed on the broker portal, but the BDM was very helpful.”

While BDMs at Commonwealth Bank have earned positive recognition, the comments indicate that they are sometimes left to manage gaps in other areas, like platform usability, highlighting a dependency on BDMs to bridge communication and service shortfalls.

The experience of working with CBA

We can look more specifically at the broker experience journey—mapping the percentage of satisfied brokers at each stage of the scenario, application, assessment, and settlement phases of working with a lender. 

With a few peaks and valleys along the way, each stage shows a downward trend. Over the past 12 months, the broker experience rating decreased from 90% to 84%, the BMDs satisfaction rating from 83% to 79%, application from 93% to 89%, assessment from 92% to 83%, and settlement from 92% to 85%.

The biggest change is during the assessment period, with a steep decline of 9% satisfaction within the past 12 months.

Price point pain

While CBA may appeal to brokers for reasons beyond pricing, feedback from September Broker Pulse points to pricing as a persistent issue. Many brokers expressed that the bank's pricing could be more competitive, underscoring the potential for missed opportunities if clients view their offerings as too costly. 

“Need better pricing.”

“Pricing is a big issue.”

“Good work except for the pricing. That's not great.”

While product pricing isn’t the most common primary reason brokers choose to work with Commonwealth Bank, it’s still something that matters to brokers and would-be-borrowers.