Macquarie tops across the board in: broker usage and experience, turnaround time, BDM and credit assessment

The latest Broker Pulse: Residential Lending report by Agile Market Intelligence reveals insights from our monthly survey of Australia’s mortgage brokers and highlights the key lender movements across usage, service, loan processing times, and broker experience. 

Broker flows

Macquarie leads in broker usage, dominating over the Majors

Forty-six percent of brokers submitted deals to Macquarie, the most-used lender and top non-major bank in terms of broker usage in December 2025. This mid-tier bank was used more than the major banks, which follow in ranking. ANZ comes up second with a 44% broker usage, Westpac with 39%, CBA with 37%, and NAB with 32%. This underlines Macquarie's position as a formidable competitor to the major banks.

Among the non-majors, ING attracted strong broker usage at 26%, the second highest score. This lender is followed by St. George Banking Group (22%) and Bankwest (21%). Firstmac ranked the highest among non-bank lenders, garnering a broker usage of 10%. Pepper Money follows behind at 8%, and Liberty Financial at 7%. 

‍Decision drivers

Mid-tiers preferred for product pricing; non-banks dominate for client circumstances

Eighty percent of brokers who engaged with Major banks provided recommendations primarily due to how the lenders’ products matched the circumstances of their clients. Apart from client fit, 33% of brokers for major banks cited product pricing as a core driver, the second highest reason. This is rounded out by the clients’ own preferences (16%). For brokers engaging with non-major ADIs, product pricing is the leading factor (63%), preferred even over client circumstances (57%). The third most significant factor is turnaround times, a priority for 28% of brokers. For non-banks, ‘client circumstances’ is the leading decision driver for 87% of brokers, followed by product pricing at 7%. 

Non-majors outpace the other lender types in terms of product pricing, indicating that the cost of their products is significantly competitive compared to the rest. In a similar vein, for non-banks brokers have a greater preference in fitting products to the clients’ circumstances, which may be attributable to the flexible nature of these types of lenders. 

Turnaround times

Macquarie, ubank, and AFG Home Loan lead with the shortest turnaround time

Large ADIs

Macquarie Bank continues to lead with the fastest average of 1.9 business days. This bank is followed by Bankwest and St. George Banking Group, with turnaround times of 3.5 and 4 days, respectively. Both of these banks also hastened their processes compared to the previous month. The lenders with the shortest turnaround times are mid-tier banks, with the fastest Major being CBA with a 5.1 turnaround time.

Small ADIs

In the small ADIs category, uBank continues to have the fastest turnaround time of 2.7 business days. MyState and Beyond Bank follow with turnaround times of 5 and 5.1 days, respectively. Rounding out at fourth place is Great Southern Bank, with a process time of up to 5.1 business days. Interestingly, this lender is one of the few to have quickened their overall turnaround times. Another bank with a similar achievement was Teachers Mutual Bank, having a turnaround time of 8.7 days in December, when the lender previously took up to 12 business days in the past. 

Non-ADIs

Among non-banks, AFG Home Loans is the quickest lender in December, with a turnaround of 3.7 business days. In addition, this lender is the only one to have outpaced its previous turnaround time in its own category. By contrast, the rest have either reported slower processing or kept the same pace as the month prior. Advantedge and Bluestone Home Loans follow directly behind leader AFG Home Loans, despite reporting longer turnaround times month-on-month at 4.6 and 5 days, respectively. 

Broker experience

Macquarie, Great Southern Bank, and AFG Home Loans boast highest broker satisfaction experience

Large ADIs

Ninety-six percent of brokers vouched for Macquarie having a satisfactory broker experience for the past three months. Bankwest follows with a 92% rating, right before ING with 91%. NAB and St. George Banking Group are tied for fourth with both having a satisfactory rate of 88%. The rest of the Majors scored lower, indicating less satisfactory experiences. At the bottom, AMP falls behind with a 69% rating.

Small ADIs

Great Southern Bank and ubank share the top spot among small ADIs with a rating of 93% in terms of satisfied brokers. At third place, P&N Bank scored a 90% satisfactory rating, followed by MyState at 88%. Following these lenders are Bank Australia with a score of 87%, and HSBC with a 80% satisfaction rating.

Non-ADIs

Among non-ADIs, AFG Home Loans provided the most positive broker experience with a rating of 92%. RedZed follows second with a score of 91%, rounded out by Advantedge with a score of 88% to complete the top three. The succeeding four lenders all scored a similar rating of 80%, namely Resimac, La Trobe Financial, Liberty Financial, and Connective Home Loans.

Broker insights on BDMs and credit teams

Macquarie leads in both BDM and credit assessor experience

In terms of broker experience with lender BDMs, Macquarie ranked the highest positive rating at 94%. Suncorp came second with a score of 91%, followed closely by Bankwest and ING with ratings of 89% and 88%, respectively. Across commonly used ADIs, mid-tier banks had the highest positive BDM experience, while the Majors ranked lower by comparison. NAB took the top position among the Majors with a score of 81%. 

Among less commonly used ADIs, Beyond Bank is the only lender to score a resounding 100% for the month of December. Following behind are Bank Australia and P&N Bank, both securing a positive BDM score of 93%. As for commonly used non-ADIs, Advantedge, AFG Home Loans, and RedZed led the pack with a 100% broker experience rating. Coming up at their heels were Bluestone Home Loans and La Trobe Financial, which recorded positive BDM experience ratings of 87% and 86%, respectively.

Macquarie ranked first with a 96% satisfaction rating for credit assessment experience. Bankwest followed second with a score of 88%, rounded out by Bendigo Bank and St. George Banking Group with the same score of 86%.

Among less commonly used ADIs, Great Southern Bank scored the highest satisfaction rating in credit assessment experience at 95%. Bank Australia and ubank followed directly behind with ratings of 93% and 90%, respectively. As for the commonly used non-ADIs, Advantedge and AFG Home Loans both scored a 100% positive experience rating. Rounding out at third place is RedZed with a credit assessment score of 90%. 

About the report

This Broker Pulse survey gathered responses from 345 residential brokers, collected between the 1st and 14th January 2026. Brokers were asked to share their experiences with the lenders they worked with throughout September, rating them across turnaround time, credit assessment, BDM interactions, and the overall broker journey. 

About Broker Pulse: Residential Lending

Broker Pulse is a monthly survey of residential mortgage lenders conducted by Agile Market Intelligence. It is a community-driven knowledge base of lender performance that offers transparency to the market by surfacing these collective insights from the broker community. This empowers brokers to make informed decisions and enables lenders to benchmark and improve performance.

Participating brokers receive access to a bird’s-eye view of the lender benchmarking data each month. To sign up or for more information visit https://www.brokerpulse.com.au/.