MA Money Moved Prime Full-Doc and Alt-Doc to 80% LVR on Loans to $5m. Which Files Were Stuck on 75% or a Physical Val?

1. What actually moved on 26 August

The trade-press pack is short, and that is useful. From 26 August 2026, MA Money increased the maximum LVR on prime full-doc and alt-doc loans up to $5 million from 75 per cent to 80 per cent. The LVR on vacant land loans increased from 75 per cent to 80 per cent. Properties in category-1 postcodes can now use an automated valuation model instead of a traditional physical valuation, for loans at or below 80 per cent of the property’s value and no more than $2 million. The maximum loan size for category-3 locations doubled from $500,000 to $1 million.

Lemon’s gloss, to Australian Broker, is flexibility on larger loans and across locations and borrower types. Self-employed borrowers are a significant segment, “along with investors looking to maximise borrowing capacity, larger loan scenarios and clients using structures such as companies and trusts.” MA Money sits under MA Financial. It is a broker-only lender. Lemon said the firm does not rely on credit scoring and assesses each application on its merits — a line he tied to self-employed borrowers, complex income or structures, previous credit impairments, and clients earning bonuses or commissions.

That is the announced set. It is not a product guide. It is not a rate card. It is not a claim that every 80 per cent file now belongs with one lender. A policy door opening is only useful if you know which of your files were standing in front of it.

2. The files that died on 75 per cent

Start with the pile you can name. A purchase or a refinance that was declined, parked, or never lodged because the LVR sat at 76, 78 or 80 per cent, on a prime full-doc or alt-doc scenario up to $5 million, sat outside the old maximum. As of 26 August it sits inside a new one. That is the cleanest “writeable this week” test in the pack.

It is also the easiest to over-read. LVR is one gate. Serviceability, income evidence, the security, the structure, and your aggregator accreditation did not move just because the cap did. A self-employed file that now fits the LVR still needs the alt-doc or full-doc evidence the product requires. A company or trust that now fits still needs the structure the credit team will actually assess. Lemon named those borrower types because they are the book, not because the 26 August note rewrote income policy in public.

Treat 76 to 80 per cent as a filter, not a mandate. Pull the live files in that band. Split them by document type and loan size. Anything over $5 million is outside the announced prime LVR lift. Anything already at or under 75 per cent was not stuck on this cap — it was stuck on something else, and this update does not fix that something else.

3. The valuation wait on category-1 postcodes

The second stuck pile is the physical valuation. MA Money is now allowing an automated valuation on category-1 postcodes instead of a traditional physical valuation, for loans at or below 80 per cent LVR and no more than $2 million. If a live file is sitting in a val wait, and the postcode is actually category 1, and the loan and LVR fit those two limits, the path changed.

If the postcode is not category 1, the physical valuation is still the path. That sentence is the whole operational risk. Brokers do not lose files because they missed a press release. They lose them because they promised a client the wait was over on a category they had not checked. Confirm the category against the current postcode guide before the next conversation. Memory is not a category list.

An AVM is a valuation path. It is not a skip-the-credit-process card, and it is not a published turnaround time. This piece will not invent one. The useful move is narrower: take every file currently waiting on a physical val, mark the postcode category, mark the LVR and the loan amount, and split the list into “may now be AVM-eligible” and “still a physical val”. That split is this week’s work.

4. Category 3, vacant land, and the rest of the pack

Category-3 locations had a $500,000 maximum loan. They now have a $1 million maximum. A file that was too large for the old cap, and is still at or under $1 million, is a different conversation this week — if the postcode is category 3 on the current guide. Vacant land is the same five-point LVR lift as the prime residential products, from 75 per cent to 80 per cent, same effective date.

Lemon also told Australian Broker the firm had made broader changes to residential, bridging, expat and self-managed super fund loans. Broker Daily, reporting the same pack on 27 August, added income verification and credit policy, and quoted Stephen Begnell, head of lending: the lender had looked closely at where it could make meaningful changes “while maintaining a responsible and considered approach to credit.” The result, Begnell said, is a broad set of updates that will allow the lender to consider more scenarios “when a deal doesn’t fit neatly within traditional lending parameters.”

Those sentences are real. The line items behind them were not published in enough detail to brief a desk. Do not invent an expat LVR, a bridging term, or an SMSF cash-out rule from a “broader changes” clause. If a live bridging, expat or SMSF file was waiting on a rule you cannot name, that is the job: name the rule in the current guide, then see whether it moved. A press clipping is not a credit policy.

5. A non-bank book past $8 billion

The updated policies arrive on a book that is no longer a niche. Australian Broker reported MA Money’s loan book surged 127 per cent to $7.5 billion in the most recent first half. The lender has since surpassed $8 billion, following more than $1 billion in new settlements in the opening months of 2026’s second half. Broker Daily dated the $7.5 billion figure to 30 June 2026, against the first half of 2025. Lemon credits people, policies and products, technology and service: BDMs with deep non-bank lending experience, credit analysts who assess each application on its merits, and technology investment “so we can grow without losing the responsiveness brokers expect.”

The sector number sits next to the brand number. In the June quarter, ABS data reported by Australian Broker put home loans issued by Australia’s non-bank sector up 65.2 per cent to $10.49 billion, from $6.35 billion a year earlier. Major-bank home-loan lending grew 2 per cent in the same period. Lemon’s reading is worth keeping in the briefing, because it is not a “banks said no” story: “It’s not necessarily about a borrower being unable to get finance elsewhere. Sometimes a non-bank simply has a policy or assessment approach that better reflects their circumstances.”

There is a separate, already-running pricing window. Do not confuse it with the 26 August pack. MA Money’s Residential Rate Refresh, as published on the lender’s own site and LinkedIn, runs from 29 July to 30 September 2026 on new residential and expat applications. The attributed figures this brief will use, and no others: Prime Full Doc from 6.49 per cent per annum (comparison 6.53 per cent) for loans up to 65 per cent LVR and $2.5 million; Prime Alt Doc from 6.79 per cent (comparison 6.83 per cent). Those rates sit on a lower LVR band than the new 80 per cent maximum. Do not invent a rate for the new LVR. Price is a different conversation from whether the file can be written at all.

6. Four questions before you re-lodge

This is panel awareness, not a default-path rewrite. A non-bank that just printed that kind of book growth will attract more files. More files is not a reason to make one lender the habit. Keep a named fallback on the same borrower type — accreditation, BDM, and one recent file that proves the other path still works.

On every live file you reopen this week, answer four questions before you touch the lodgement screen.

Document type. Prime full-doc, prime alt-doc, vacant land, or something in the broader pack. The 80 per cent lift was announced on the first three. Bridging, expat and SMSF need the guide, not a headline.

LVR. At or below 75 per cent was already inside the old cap. Seventy-six to 80 per cent is the band that just opened on the announced products, up to $5 million. Above 80 per cent is still outside those maximums.

Loan size. $5 million is the cap on the prime LVR lift. $2 million is the cap on the category-1 AVM. $1 million is the cap on category 3. A file can clear one of those and fail another.

Postcode category and valuation path. Category 1: automated valuation may now be available inside the LVR and loan limits. Category 3: the maximum loan moved. Everything else: confirm before you promise a client a shorter val.

If you cannot answer those four, you do not have a writeable file. You have a hopeful one. The tool below walks the same split.

7. Three actions this week

1. Pull the stuck pipeline. Every live file that died on a 76 to 80 per cent LVR, or is waiting on a physical valuation. Dollar amount, document type, postcode category, val status. If you cannot produce that list, that is the finding.
2. Confirm the category against the current guide. Category 1 versus category 3 versus everything else. Memory is how a category-2 file gets promised an automated valuation it cannot have.
3. Re-work only the files that now fit. Re-price, re-check serviceability, re-lodge. For every file you send, write the fallback lender and the BDM name next to it. The 26 August pack is a gate. It is not a panel.

Lemon is right that demand for larger loans and more location and borrower flexibility is what the market is asking for. The unfinished sentence is that a policy door opening is only useful if you know which of your files were standing in front of it.