Wisr’s Secured Vehicle Originations Rose 138% While the Majors’ Share of That Market Fell to 56%. RG 273.133 Says Your Best Interests Duty Follows You Into Those Files

What the quarter actually shows

Wisr reported $253.8 million of new loan originations for the three months to 30 September 2026 — up 73% on the $146.8 million written in the same quarter a year earlier, and up 28% on the $198.1 million written in the June quarter. The company described it as a record quarter and said the figures are unaudited.

The split is the part worth reading twice. Secured vehicle originations were $128.9 million, up from $54.1 million — a 138% increase, and the larger share of a quarter that was itself the biggest on record. Personal loan originations were $124.9 million, up 35% from $92.7 million. The loan book finished at $1,211.0 million, up 40% on the $867.6 million at September 2025 and 12% on June 2026, which Wisr described as its eighth consecutive quarter of growth. Of that book, 59% ($710 million) is personal loans and 41% ($501 million) is secured vehicle loans.

Revenue was $33.1 million, up 32% on the $25.0 million a year earlier. On the back of the quarter, Wisr upgraded its FY27 cash net profit after tax guidance to at least $7.0 million, from at least $5.0 million set previously — a 40% lift. Chief executive Andrew Goodwin said the results were, in part, “testament to effective business execution since returning to growth”.

For brokers, two further figures in the release matter more than the profit line: Wisr reported more than 13,500 brokers on panel, and a broker Net Promoter Score of +81, marginally ahead of its +80 customer score. Whatever else the quarter says, it says this lending is being distributed through intermediaries at scale.

The structural number, and exactly what it measures

The figure that will get repeated from this release is the decline in the major banks’ share. Wisr’s Q1FY27 presentation states that the majors’ share of the personal and secured vehicle lending market fell from 70% in December 2022 to 56% in August 2026, and attributes the underlying data to an RBA chart on the share of total household lending held with banks. The presentation also states that two major banks have exited the secured vehicle lending market.

It is worth being precise here, because the trade coverage was not uniform. The Adviser reported the 70% and 56% figures as the majors’ share of “total personal lending”. The primary release frames the same figures as covering personal and secured vehicle lending together. The broader framing is the one to use, and it changes the inference: this is not evidence that the majors are specifically abandoning unsecured personal loans, it is evidence of a retreat across consumer non-mortgage credit as a category.

Equally important is what the number is not. It is a market-share figure between lender types. It says nothing about how much of that lending is written by brokers rather than direct, and it is not a measure of broker-channel penetration. Wisr’s own estimate of its position — described in the presentation as management estimates — is 0.8% of secured vehicle originations against an addressable market of roughly $46 billion, and 3.7% of personal loan originations against roughly $12 billion. Those are the numbers that tell you how early this is.

Read the margin line before the growth line

Growth at this speed usually costs something, and in this release it shows up in the margin. Net interest margin was 4.90%, down 21 basis points on the 5.11% recorded in the June quarter and down 36 basis points on the 5.26% a year earlier. Portfolio yield was 11.03% and the risk-adjusted margin 3.71%. Reporting on the release, Australian Broker attributed the NIM decline to the shift in mix toward lower-yielding vehicle loans.

Credit quality moved the other way. Loans 90 or more days in arrears sat at 0.86%, down 28 basis points on the 1.14% a year earlier and 15 points on June’s 1.01%. Net losses were 1.19%, down 44 basis points on 1.63% in Q1FY26. The average credit score across the book was 802, five points below the 807 recorded at both June 2026 and September 2025.

That combination is the genuinely interesting signal for brokers: a book that grew 40% over the year while arrears and net losses both improved, and only a five-point slip in average credit score. The practical caution runs the other way to the one you might expect. Do not assume a consumer car or personal loan book behaves like the mortgage book sitting beside it — these are different exposures to broadly the same households, and the arrears story you tell a client about one does not transfer to the other.

The part most brokers have not checked: RG 273.133

Here is the assumption worth testing before you take an accreditation. A great many residential brokers treat the best interests duty as a home loan obligation — something that attaches to residentially secured credit assistance and switches off elsewhere. ASIC’s guidance does not describe it that way.

Under section 158LA of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, a mortgage broker must act in the best interests of the consumer when providing credit assistance. “Mortgage broker” is defined in section 15B and summarised at RG 273.7 as a person who carries on a business of providing credit assistance in relation to credit contracts secured by mortgages over residential property, who does not act as the credit provider for most of those contracts, and who provides credit assistance on contracts offered by more than one credit provider.

That definition describes the person, not the transaction. And RG 273.133 then says what follows:

“As a mortgage broker, the best interests duty applies to any credit assistance you provide. This includes credit assistance on products that are packaged with a mortgage, as well as any standalone credit products on which you provide credit assistance.”

RG 273.15(f) makes the same point in ASIC’s statement of general principles, noting that the duty and the conflict priority rule apply each time a mortgage broker provides credit assistance, including on “credit assistance about credit cards and personal loans that are packaged with a home loan, as well as standalone products on which mortgage brokers provide credit assistance”.

Two further paragraphs close the exits. RG 273.13 states that nothing in the guidance is intended to provide a safe harbour. RG 273.14 states that the obligations cannot be avoided by any notice or disclaimer given to or signed by the consumer, and that a broker cannot comply merely by getting the consumer to consent to the credit assistance or to a conflict of interest.

On the face of that guidance, a broker who meets the section 15B definition and who writes a standalone consumer car loan is doing best-interests work on that file, with the same conflict priority rule attached. Whether that is how your file notes, your product comparison and your reasons-for-recommendation record currently behave on a non-mortgage deal is a question worth putting to your licensee this week rather than after an audit.

Where the duty stops

The boundary is purpose, not product name. RG 273.5 states that the best interests obligations apply only in relation to credit products regulated under the National Credit Act — that is, products provided to consumers for personal, domestic or household purposes, or for the purchase or improvement of residential investment property.

That line separates two things brokers often file under the single heading of “diversification”:

RG 273.134 is worth noting on its own. It states that the duty does not apply to non-credit products such as insurance, and that if you offer those products you must not imply that the duty applies — because doing so may be misleading or deceptive conduct. The guidance is symmetrical: overstating the duty’s reach to a client is its own problem.

None of the above is compliance advice, and the characterisation of purpose on any given file is exactly the sort of question your licensee or compliance adviser should be answering on the facts.

Risk-based pricing is a best-interests problem, not a quoting problem

This is where diversification bites hardest on process. Consumer personal and secured vehicle loans are commonly priced to risk: the lender publishes a rate band, and the actual rate is set during assessment. RG 273.129 describes exactly this product shape. RG 273.130 then says that when discussing these products you should explain to the consumer how risk-based pricing works and give a general description of how their circumstances may affect the lender’s decision, including past use of credit, employment status and income, and whether the loan will be secured and by what.

RG 273.131 goes further: when considering whether a risk-priced product is in the consumer’s best interests, you should be informed by public material on the range of rates offered by particular lenders as well as your own previous experience, so that you can give the consumer an estimated range for the rate they might expect.

And then RG 273.132, which cuts directly across a common habit:

“We consider that applying for loans to determine loan price offerings may not be in the consumer’s best interests. For example, multiple applications may affect the consumer’s credit history and reduce the availability, or increase the cost, of future credit products.”

Submitting to three lenders to see which rate comes back is, on ASIC’s stated view, the wrong way to price a risk-priced consumer loan. The expectation is that you form the estimate first, from published bands and experience, and lodge once.

There is a consumer-side reason to care beyond the file note. Research commissioned by CreditSmart, a consumer education platform owned and managed by Arca, and reported by Broker Daily on 23 October 2026, found more than one in four Australians have avoided applying for a financial product over fears of damaging their credit score — rising to 41% of Millennials, 37% of Gen Z and 34% of households earning under $100,000. The coverage does not state the sample size or survey dates, so treat the figures as that research’s own. Arca chief executive Elsa Markula said the system “can make people afraid to do exactly that” — shop around and compare. ClearScore chief executive Justin Basini noted that soft-search eligibility checks are standard in the UK, “making it far easier for people to explore and compare” without fear of harming their credit profile.

Your client’s instinct and RG 273.132 point the same direction. Treat the enquiry footprint as a cost you are managing on their behalf, and record why you lodged where you lodged.

What to review this week

A scenario, worked

A client you settled a refinance for 14 months ago comes back. They want to replace the family car and are looking at roughly $35,000. They ask whether to add it to the home loan or take a car loan, and they mention a friend told them to “apply at a few places and see who comes back best”.

On the guidance above, the shape of a defensible file looks like this. The purpose is personal and domestic, so the credit is National Credit Act regulated and, on RG 273.5 and RG 273.133, your credit assistance is best-interests work whichever way it goes. The comparison is not car loan against car loan — it includes the option of funding the purchase through the mortgage, which RG 273.135 to RG 273.140 treat as a packaging question requiring you to weigh the package against standalone alternatives, and which carries an obvious cost-over-term consequence you should quantify rather than assert. Because the car loan options are risk-priced, RG 273.130 expects you to explain how that pricing works and RG 273.131 expects an estimated range before anything is lodged. And the friend’s advice is the one piece you push back on: RG 273.132 is ASIC’s stated view that applying around to discover price may not be in the client’s best interests.

The file note that survives review is the one that records the purpose finding, the options considered including the mortgage route, the estimated rate range and where it came from, the reason for the single lodgement, and why the recommended option was in this client’s best interests rather than merely acceptable — the standard RG 273.140 applies to packages and RG 273.13 declines to soften with a safe harbour.

What to watch next

• ASIC’s follow-through on REP 840. ASIC published Report 840, Mortgage brokers: Review of best interests duty and complaints, on 13 October 2026. The duty is under live supervisory attention, and the scope point above is the one least likely to be covered by an existing process.
• Arca’s default-listing push. On Broker Daily‘s report, Arca wants the default listing threshold lifted from $150 to at least $300. If that moves, the credit-file conversation you have with clients changes with it.
• More consumer non-mortgage product launches. Bank Australia launched a Clean Energy Personal Loan for home electrification upgrades at 7.49% variable with no establishment or ongoing fees, which appeared in Broker Daily‘s lender round-up for 15–22 October; that coverage does not state whether it is broker-distributed. Watch which of these arrive with a broker channel attached.
• Whether margin compression continues. Wisr’s NIM has now fallen in consecutive quarters as mix shifted. A further fall would say the competitive window is narrowing faster than the volume growth suggests.

The strategic takeaway

The commercial case for consumer non-mortgage lending is no longer a hunch. One listed non-bank grew originations 73% in a quarter, nearly all of the increase coming from secured vehicle lending, with credit performance improving and 13,500-plus brokers on panel, against a category the major banks have been stepping back from since 2022. If your residential volumes are under pressure, that is a real place to look.

But the thing that makes it workable is not the accreditation. It is whether your best-interests process travels. On ASIC’s guidance, the duty follows the person, not the security — and the quoting behaviour that is normal in risk-priced consumer lending is the behaviour RG 273.132 singles out. Brokers who sort that out first will write these files cleanly. Brokers who treat a car loan as a lighter-touch deal because there is no mortgage attached are making a scope assumption that the guidance does not support.

Sources. Wisr Limited, “Wisr delivers record growth and upgrades FY27 guidance” and “WZR Q1FY27 Company Update Presentation”, ASX announcements released 22 October 2026 (Q1FY27 figures unaudited; market-position figures described as management estimates). ASIC, Regulatory Guide 273 Mortgage brokers: Best interests duty, June 2020, at RG 273.5, 273.7, 273.13, 273.14, 273.15(f), 273.129–273.135, 273.140. National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, ss 15B, 158LA, 158LB, 158LE, 158LF. ASIC, Report 840 Mortgage brokers: Review of best interests duty and complaints, 13 October 2026. “Wisr reports record growth as majors lose auto, personal loan share”, The Adviser, 23 October 2026. “Wisr upgrades profit guidance after record $254m loan quarter”, Australian Broker, 23 October 2026. “Credit score fears deter Australians from seeking better deals” and “Broker policy round-up: Lender changes at a glance 15–22 October”, Broker Daily, 23 October 2026. “Bank Australia launches personal loan for home electrification”, Broker Daily, 22 October 2026.