CBA’s Broker Share Hits 36% as Home Loan Applications Fall 17%: What FY26 Means for Your Book

Brokers wrote 36% of Commonwealth Bank’s new home loan fundings in the second half of FY26 — up from 33% in each of the two preceding halves — according to CBA’s full-year results released to the ASX on 12 August 2026. The channel gain is real. It also came in a half where CBA’s total new fundings fell from $105 billion to $95 billion and its application volumes ran 17% below the same time last year. Brokers took a bigger slice of a smaller pie, and the same deck explains exactly why CBA would like that trend reversed.

In this article

• The Numbers CBA Actually Disclosed
• The Channel Shift: 33% to 36% in Six Months
• A Bigger Slice of a Shrinking Pie
• The 20–30% Gap CBA Keeps Publishing
• The Fixed-Rate Signal: 1% to 7% in One Half
• The Investor Retreat and Where It Leaves Your Pipeline
• Arrears at 0.73%: The Credit Turn Underneath the Result
• What This Means for Brokers in Australia
• Your Next 30 Days: A Broker Checklist
• The Bottom Line

The Numbers CBA Actually Disclosed

CBA reported cash net profit after tax of $10,982 million for FY26, up 7% on FY25, with return on equity of 14.0% and net interest margin of 2.05%, three basis points lower than FY25. The board declared a final dividend of $2.70 per share, taking the full-year dividend to $5.05.

The headline the bank chose for itself was distribution breadth: CBA says it grew at or above system in all five core domestic product categories — home lending, business lending, consumer finance, household deposits and business deposits — a first for the bank, and it says the first for any major Australian bank in fifteen years.

For brokers, the interesting material sits further back, in the home lending pages of the results presentation. The home loan book grew from $634 billion at June 2025 to $680 billion at June 2026. New fundings by half ran $87bn (1H25), $85bn (2H25), $105bn (1H26) and $95bn (2H26).

The Channel Shift: 33% to 36% in Six Months

CBA publishes its fundings mix by channel every half. The sequence now reads 67% proprietary / 33% broker in 2H25, 67% / 33% in 1H26, and 64% / 36% in 2H26. Full-year proprietary origination landed at 65%.

Three percentage points in a half is not a rounding error at this scale. On roughly $95 billion of new fundings, three points is close to $3 billion of settlements crossing the channel line in six months. It is also a reversal: CBA has spent years steering flow toward its own branches, mobile lenders and digital funnels, and 2H26 gave ground.

Two readings are available and both are probably partly true. The first is competitive: when volumes soften and pricing sharpens, borrowers shop — and shopping in Australia means a broker. The second is operational: CBA’s deck shows around 70% of proprietary applications auto-decisioned same day, but quotes time to first decision of under three days for proprietary and broker together, a service gap the bank has visibly narrowed.

What CBA did not say

The disclosures do not attribute the shift to any single cause. Nothing in the result establishes that brokers won share because of service, price or policy specifically — that would be a stretch from a channel-mix bar chart. What the number establishes is direction.

A Bigger Slice of a Shrinking Pie

Here is the part that matters more than the share number. CBA’s presentation states application volumes have softened, and puts the four-week rolling average of home loan applications to 31 July 2026 about 17% below the same measure to 1 August 2025. The same page annotates a 15% fall since May.

Set that against the ASX announcement, where CBA’s outlook states housing activity has softened from a high base and that “application volumes appear to have stabilised in recent weeks.” Stabilised is not recovered. A flat line at minus 17% is still minus 17%.

So the honest read is this: brokers grew share into a contracting market. Gains of that shape flatter the channel and do little for the individual broker’s settlement volume, because a larger percentage of a smaller number can still be a smaller number. If your lodgement count is down this year while you keep reading that broker share is rising, both things are true at once.

The 20–30% Gap CBA Keeps Publishing

CBA’s home lending page repeats a line it has published before: proprietary originated home loans are approximately 20–30% more profitable than broker-originated loans. The footnote is specific — average home loan return based on a $600,000 loan size, with broker returns adjusted for upfront and trail commissions and lower operating expenses.

Take that number seriously without taking it personally. It is a unit-economics disclosure aimed at investors, not a judgement on advice quality, and it excludes what the channel delivers in reach and lending the bank would otherwise never see. But it explains bank behaviour, and predicts the levers a major reaches for when margins compress: proprietary-only pricing, retention teams that call your client before the discharge, channel-specific turnaround priority, and features easier to access direct than through a panel.

None of that is speculation about CBA specifically — it is what a 20–30% return differential does to incentives at any lender measuring it the same way.

The Fixed-Rate Signal: 1% to 7% in One Half

Buried in the fundings mix is the sharpest borrower-behaviour signal in the whole deck. Fixed-rate loans made up 1% of CBA’s fundings mix in 2H25 and 1% again in 1H26. In 2H26 they were 7%.

A sevenfold move off a tiny base is still a tiny base — 93% of CBA’s 2H26 fundings were variable. But the direction says borrowers have started buying certainty after years of refusing to. That fits a market where the cash rate has held at 4.35% and major-bank consensus has pushed the first cut well out. When borrowers stop expecting near-term relief, fixed starts to look like insurance rather than a bet.

For brokers this is a live conversation, not a data point. If 7% is the start of a trend rather than a blip, the brokers with a documented framework for fixed and split recommendations — who can evidence why the recommendation meets Best Interest Duty for that borrower’s circumstances rather than the market’s mood — will handle the next six months better than those improvising.

The Investor Retreat and Where It Leaves Your Pipeline

CBA’s application chart separates the fall by borrower type: investor applications marked down 28% from the May level, owner-occupied down 9%. The fundings mix moves the same way — investor share fell from 43% in 1H26 to 39% in 2H26.

A pullback of that scale reshapes a broker’s book three ways. Deal size drops, because owner-occupied purchases in a softening market skew smaller than the leveraged investor deals they replace. Complexity drops with it — which sounds like good news until you notice it compresses the value you can charge for. And the repeat-business engine of an investor client base goes quiet.

The offset: owner-occupied demand held up comparatively well, and refinance activity does not require a purchase decision from a nervous borrower. Which points at the obvious defensive play — your existing book.

Arrears at 0.73%: The Credit Turn Underneath the Result

CBA’s loan impairment expense rose 9% on FY25 to $788 million — a loan loss rate of eight basis points — and jumped 47% on 1H26. Home loan arrears increased to 0.73% and personal loan arrears to 1.72%, which the bank attributes to cost-of-living pressures. Provision coverage remains strong at 1.53% of credit risk weighted assets, and CBA reports more than 147,000 tailored payment arrangements during the year.

These are not distress numbers — an arrears rate under 1% on a $680 billion book is a sound portfolio. But the second-half acceleration in impairment expense is the part to watch, because credit deterioration is what turns a lender’s serviceability settings — and serviceability settings are what turn a broker’s approval rate.

What This Means for Brokers in Australia

Four practical implications sit inside this result.

Retention is now the growth strategy. With applications 17% below last year, the cheapest settlement available this quarter is a client you already have — and a bank publishing a 20–30% channel profitability gap has every reason to fund a team that reaches that client first.

Share statistics and revenue are diverging. Channel-level good news does not automatically show up in your bank account. Measure your own lodgement count against the same period last year before concluding the market is fine.

Fixed-rate conversations need a framework, not a reflex. Under Best Interest Duty the recommendation has to be defensible on that client’s circumstances — cash flow certainty, hold period, break cost exposure, offset needs — and documented at the time, not reconstructed later.

Watch serviceability, not just price. Rising impairment expense typically precedes tighter assessment settings. If credit appetite narrows in FY27, brokers who already know which lenders on their panel are outliers on assessment rates, HEM treatment and investor policy will place deals the rest re-work twice.

Your Next 30 Days: A Broker Checklist

• Run a discharge-risk list. Pull every client settled 18–36 months ago on a variable rate, ranked by rate gap to today’s market. Those are the ones a retention team calls.
• Rebuild your fixed-rate script. A written framework: when fixed or split is appropriate, break cost exposure, and how you evidence the recommendation for Best Interest Duty.
• Re-qualify your investor pipeline. Any investor pre-approval issued before May runs on assumptions the market has moved past. Re-test servicing before the client re-tests you.
• Map your panel’s assessment rates. One page, every lender, current floor and buffer, investor policy quirks. Update monthly while credit settings move.
• Check your own volume trend. Lodgements, approvals and settlements, this year versus last, by borrower type.
• Prepare a hardship pathway. With arrears rising, knowing each lender’s hardship process before a client needs it is both a service differentiator and a compliance safeguard.

The Bottom Line

CBA’s FY26 result hands the broker channel a genuine win and an equally genuine warning in the same set of slides. The win is 36% of fundings in 2H26, the strongest channel share the bank has shown this cycle, achieved while the major was steering flow the other way. The warning is that it happened inside a 17% year-on-year fall in applications, a 28% retreat in investor demand from May, and a published 20–30% profitability gap that gives every major a standing reason to compete harder for your client’s next loan than for your next lodgement.

What to watch next: whether fixed-rate share climbs past 7% in 1H27, whether CBA’s “stabilised in recent weeks” line holds through spring, and whether second-half impairment growth turns into tighter serviceability settings across the panel. The channel share number will get the attention. The serviceability question will decide your FY27.

Sources: CBA FY26 Results ASX Announcement (12 August 2026); CBA FY26 Results Presentation and Investor Discussion Pack; CBA Investor Centre — Results.

Disclaimer: This article is for general information and professional development purposes only. It does not constitute legal, compliance, or financial advice. Brokers should consult their aggregator’s compliance team and, where required, seek independent legal advice regarding their obligations under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 and ASIC’s responsible lending guidelines.