Macquarie Bank beats rivals on mortgages, ANZ trails the group: Jarden report

The investment and retail bank has ranked top of the pile for home loans across metrics including credit growth and broker experience, while ANZ lags the pack.

Macquarie Bank ranked first for credit growth and broker experience and Westpac scored best on mortgage pricing. Picture: iStock

Macquarie Bank has ranked top of the pile for home loans across metrics including credit growth and mortgage broker experience, while ANZ lags the pack, according to a new tracking report.

Jarden’s Mortgage Competition Tracker, which draws on insights from BrokerPulse as well as official banking data, assessed three-month annualised credit growth, home loan pricing and broker experience. It then gave large and smaller lenders a total ranking based on how they scored.

“We find among the larger lenders that Macquarie is the clear standout, while among the smaller lenders Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is performing best,” the report led by Jarden’s chief economist Carlos Cacho said.

“ANZ remains the laggard, dragged down by below-average rankings in all categories.”

The report did note that ANZ’s home loan turnaround times had improved, but the bank ranked fifth behind its big four rivals and Macquarie for credit growth and fourth for broker experience and pricing.

National Australia Bank ranked fifth on pricing, while Westpac was in last spot for broker experience.

Macquarie was first for credit growth and broker experience and Westpac scored best on pricing.

Commonwealth Bank came in second overall, behind Macquarie, ranking second on broker experience and third on pricing and credit growth respectively.

The report also noted that competition in the mortgage market would become fiercer as $500bn of fixed rate loans neared expiry.

Among the regional lenders, Jarden said competition “remains intense”, an observation that is timely given ANZ has agreed to buy Suncorp’s bank. The deal requires sign off from the competition regulator and state and federal governments.

Suncorp ranked in second spot in Jarden’s report in the regional group behind Bendigo Bank. ING and AMP were third and fourth respectively, while Bank of Queensland trailed in fifth spot.

Rapid interest rate rises by the Reserve Bank to tame inflation are expected to slow credit growth this year and property prices have already retreated.

ANZ’s June quarter trading update last week showed it was benefiting from higher rates.

The net interest margin increased 3 basis points for the quarter and underlying net interest margin was up 6 basis points to 1.64 per cent. “This was largely driven by the impact of rising rates, partly offset by intense price competition in the home lending portfolios,” ANZ said.

Jarden was positive on the upcoming profit season for some of the banking sector, as rising interest rates boost net interest margins, but the broker is still treading cautiously on the outlook.

“We continue to have an underweight view on the sector, and expect the accelerating housing correction to weigh on performance,” Mr Cacho said.

CBA reports annual earnings on August 10 and Jarden is tipping a cash profit of $9.34bn or a rise of 8 per cent on the year before.

“For (the) second-half 2022 estimated profit, we are circa 3 per cent above consensus on lower BDDs (bad and doubtful debts), modest quarter-on-quarter margin uplift in the fourth quarter and scope for better markets income,” Mr Cacho said.