The Broker Times · Lender Brief
Skip the Growth Number. Read the Concentration.
Great Southern Bank’s FY26 result carries the usual growth figures and one number that is actually about your files: a first home buyer share more than triple its overall mortgage share.
The FY26 headline figures
As reported by Australian Broker, 22 September 2026, from the bank’s own FY26 reporting.
Why the concentration figure is the useful one
It is an outcome, not a claim
A lender over-indexes to a segment because credit policy, pricing and assessment behaviour all favour it — and the files keep getting approved. That is harder to fake than positioning.
Size answers the wrong question
Whether a lender is large tells you little about whether it will accept this borrower’s deposit position and income evidence. Segment presence tells you more.
It works in reverse too
A big book with a thin presence in your client’s segment is also information, whatever the BDM deck says.
The rest of the result
Figures as reported for FY26.
| Measure | FY26 |
|---|---|
| Home loans written | over 14,000 |
| Active customers | over 434,400, up 12,500 |
| Customer net promoter score | 56, up 5 points |
| Small business customers | over 5,500 |
| Business+ Savings deposits since launch | $200m |
Two cautions before you use any of this
“More than triple” sets a floor on a ratio — it does not let you back-calculate the underlying share. And these are full-year historical figures from a lender’s own reporting; they say nothing about current credit policy or pricing, and nothing here is a recommendation of any lender.
The broker takeaway
When a lender result lands, look past the growth headline for a segment concentration figure. Growth describes the lender’s year; concentration describes how it is likely to treat the file on your desk.
Then do the same exercise on your own book. Which lenders are over-represented in which client types across your last twelve months of settlements? That is the most accurate appetite map you will ever get, because you wrote every file in it.
Sources: Great Southern Bank FY26 results as reported by Australian Broker, 22 September 2026, drawing on the bank’s own reporting, including the quote from Chief Executive Officer Paul Lewis. Figures are historical and are not an indication of current credit policy or pricing.
Lender Results · Broker Analysis
Great Southern Bank’s First Home Buyer Share Is More Than Triple Its Overall Mortgage Share. That Is a Placement Signal, Not a League Table
Annual results are usually a story about the lender. This one contains a number that is actually about your files — where a lender’s appetite genuinely sits, as opposed to where its marketing says it does.
Great Southern Bank grew home lending 7.6% to $18.78 billion in FY26 and lifted net profit 27.3% to $55 million. Those are the headline numbers. The more useful one is that the bank wrote approximately 3% of the national first home buyer market — more than triple its overall share of the mortgage market.
In this article
The FY26 numbers
Great Southern Bank reported its FY26 result on 22 September. The growth figures are solid for a customer-owned bank operating against majors that have been repricing aggressively.
| Measure | FY26 | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Home lending | $18.78bn | up 7.6% |
| Net profit | $55m | up 27.3% |
| Deposits | $16.02bn | up 10.4% |
| Active customers | over 434,400 | up 12,500 |
| Customer net promoter score | 56 | up 5 points |
| Home loans written | over 14,000 | — |
| Small business customers | over 5,500 | — |
The bank was reported as ranking among Australia’s top four mortgage lenders as rated by brokers, and first among non-major banks on that measure.
The concentration figure and what it implies
Buried under the growth numbers is the figure worth a broker’s attention: approximately 3% of the national first home buyer market, described as more than triple the bank’s overall mortgage share.
Hold those two together. A lender of this size is, on its own reporting, roughly three times more present in first home buyer lending than in lending generally. That is not an accident of marketing. A lender ends up over-represented in a segment because its credit policy, pricing, product set and assessment behaviour all favour that segment — and because the files keep getting approved.
A segment concentration ratio is a more honest signal of appetite than any lender’s BDM deck, because it is an outcome rather than a statement of intent.
It answers the question brokers actually have, which is not “does this lender say it likes first home buyers” but “does this lender approve them at a rate that suggests it means it”.
The arithmetic needs care, though. “More than triple its overall mortgage share” sets a floor, not a value. It tells you the ratio exceeds three; it does not tell you the bank’s overall share, and it would be wrong to back-calculate a precise figure from a phrase that was written as a comparison.
Why segment share beats size as a placement signal
Brokers are handed lender league tables constantly — by size, by growth, by turnaround time, by award. Most of them answer questions that do not arise on a file.
What arises on a file is narrower: will this lender accept this borrower’s deposit position, income evidence and circumstances, and how quickly will it say so. A lender’s overall size tells you almost nothing about that. Its concentration in the segment your client sits in tells you a good deal more, because it is the aggregate of thousands of individual credit decisions about people like your client.
The same logic runs the other way and is just as useful. A lender with a large book and a thin presence in a segment is telling you something about its appetite there, whatever its BDM says. Neither observation is a recommendation; both are inputs.
Reading the rest of the result
Two other items are worth noting for brokers who write commercial or small business alongside residential.
The bank reported more than 5,500 small business customers, and a Business+ Savings Account launched during FY26 that attracted $200 million in deposits, supported by an embedded finance partnership with MYOB. Deposit products are not lending products, but a lender building a business deposit base and an accounting-software integration is usually building toward business lending rather than away from it.
The customer net promoter score rising five points to 56 is the sort of number that is easy to skip. For a broker it is a proxy for what happens to a client after settlement — which, for anyone relying on referrals and retention, is not a soft metric.
What this does not tell you
An annual result is a lender talking about itself, and it should be read that way.
These figures come from the bank’s own FY26 reporting as covered in the trade press. Nothing in them tells you current credit policy, current turnaround times, current pricing, or whether the appetite that produced a full-year concentration figure still exists this month. Appetite changes faster than annual reporting does.
Nor is any of this a recommendation. A lender being over-represented in a segment is a reason to ask whether it fits a particular file, not a reason to place one there.
General information, not advice
Figures are as reported for FY26 and are historical. They are not an indication of current credit policy, pricing or service levels, and nothing here is a recommendation of any lender or product.
Recommendations must be made on the individual file. ASIC’s RG 273.51 treats cost — interest rate, fees and charges, and the size of repayments — as a factor brokers should prioritise, and RG 273.54 expects evidence supporting any recommendation of a higher cost loan. Confirm your process with your licensee or aggregator’s compliance team.
What to review this week
- Build your own segment concentration view of your panel. For your last twelve months of settlements, work out which lenders are over-represented in which client types on your own book. That is a better appetite map than any published table, because it reflects files you actually wrote.
- Separate “big” from “fits” in your shortlisting. Size predicts very little about whether a given borrower will be approved. Segment presence predicts more, and policy detail predicts most.
- Check first home buyer policy specifics rather than positioning. Deposit sources, guarantor structures, genuine savings requirements and scheme handling are where first home buyer files actually turn. Ask about those, not about commitment to first home buyers.
- Treat a lender’s deposit and software moves as lending signals. A business deposit product with an accounting-platform integration usually precedes business lending activity. It is worth asking a BDM what is coming.
- Re-verify appetite before relying on it. A full-year figure describes the year that finished, not the policy in force today. Confirm current position before you shortlist on the strength of a result.
- Keep the reasoning on file. Whatever informs a shortlist, what matters on review is that the file shows why the recommended product suited the client — RG 273.54 expects evidence where a higher cost loan is recommended.
What to watch next
Whether the first home buyer concentration holds as affordability pressure builds, since a segment that over-indexes to first home buyers is also a segment most exposed to deposit constraints and serviceability. Whether the MYOB partnership and the business deposit base translate into a business lending push. And whether the broker-rated ranking holds, given that it reflects service experience rather than balance sheet, and service is the first thing to strain when volume grows 7.6% in a year.
The transferable habit is the one worth keeping. When a lender result lands, skip the growth number and look for the segment concentration. Growth tells you how the lender did. Concentration tells you what it will do with your file.
Key takeaways
- Great Southern Bank reported FY26 home lending up 7.6% to $18.78 billion and net profit up 27.3% to $55 million, with deposits up 10.4% to $16.02 billion.
- The bank wrote approximately 3% of the national first home buyer market — described as more than triple its overall mortgage share, which sets a floor on the ratio rather than revealing the underlying share.
- Segment concentration is a better signal of real lender appetite than size, because it is the aggregate outcome of thousands of individual credit decisions rather than a statement of intent.
- It was reported as a top-four mortgage lender as rated by brokers and first among non-majors on that measure, with customer NPS up five points to 56.
- More than 5,500 small business customers and a Business+ Savings Account that drew $200 million alongside a MYOB embedded finance partnership suggest a business lending direction worth asking about.
- These are historical full-year figures from the lender’s own reporting. They say nothing about current credit policy or pricing, and nothing here is a recommendation of any lender.
Common questions
Can I work out the bank’s overall mortgage share from these numbers?
Not reliably. “More than triple its overall mortgage share” is a comparison that sets a floor on the ratio; it does not state the underlying share, and treating a rounded comparative phrase as a precise input produces a false number. Use the ratio as a directional signal only.
Why does segment concentration matter more than lender size?
Because size answers a question that does not arise on a file. What arises is whether this lender will accept this borrower’s deposit position, income evidence and circumstances. A lender’s presence in your client’s segment is the aggregate of thousands of decisions about comparable borrowers, which is closer to the question you actually have.
Does this mean I should place first home buyers with this lender?
No. Nothing here is a recommendation. A concentration figure is a reason to ask whether a lender fits a particular file, and recommendations have to be made on the individual file with the client’s circumstances, costs and features considered. Confirm your process with your licensee.
How current are these figures?
They are full-year FY26 figures as reported on 22 September 2026. Credit appetite, pricing and turnaround times move considerably faster than annual reporting, so re-verify current policy before relying on a result to shape a shortlist.
What is the transferable habit here?
When any lender result lands, look past the growth headline for a segment concentration figure. Growth describes the lender’s year. Concentration describes how it is likely to treat the kind of file sitting on your desk.
Sources and method: FY26 results figures — home lending, net profit, deposits, customer numbers, net promoter score, loans written, small business customers, first home buyer market share, the Business+ Savings Account and the MYOB embedded finance partnership — and the quote from Chief Executive Officer Paul Lewis, as reported by Australian Broker, 22 September 2026, drawing on Great Southern Bank’s own FY26 reporting. The broker-rated lender ranking is as described in that reporting. All figures are historical and relate to the financial year reported; they are not an indication of current credit policy, pricing or service levels. Regulatory references are to ASIC Regulatory Guide 273, Mortgage brokers: Best interests duty (June 2020), paragraphs RG 273.51 and RG 273.54.
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What a Concentration Figure Should Make You Ask
Segment concentration is an input, never a recommendation. Pick a client type and this sets out the questions a lender’s segment presence should prompt — about any lender, not a particular one.
Pick the client in front of you
An input, not an answer
Nothing here recommends any lender or product. Recommendations must be made on the individual file with the client’s circumstances, costs and features considered, and recorded accordingly. Confirm your process with your licensee or aggregator’s compliance team.
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.
