New survey details how mortgage brokers rank banks and non-banks, and what they want from them

ANZ New Zealand, the country's biggest bank, has come out on top - among banks - in a new mortgage broker/adviser survey, but the survey results also feature a strong showing from non-bank lenders.

Among the questions in the Adaptive Intelligence survey was; What lenders perform best overall?

Lender performance was ranked across 15 attributes weighted by importance including; flexible credit policy, commitment to the adviser/broker channel, helpful credit assessment staff, fast turnaround times, best pricing, easy settlement, easy document submission, post settlement client support, and call centre support.

Among the big five mortgage lending banks, ANZ came out on top, with a weighted performance score of 75%, with ASB, NZ's second biggest home lender, second at 71%, Kiwibank third at 70%, Westpac NZ on 67%, and BNZ, "a clear laggard among the main banks," at 58%.

Among smaller banks, TSB was at 63%, SBS Bank at 54%, and The Co-operative Bank 53%.

Among non-bank lenders, Pepper Money was first at 81%, followed by Basecorp Finance at 77%, Avanti Finance at 75% and Finbase at 65%.

Of the 15 factors brokers ranked by importance, flexible credit policy came out top in terms of "very important" ranking at 60.1%. The top five was rounded out by commitment to the adviser channel at 58.9%,helpful credit assessment staff at 58.3%, fast turnaround times at 57.1%, and best product pricing at 55.5%.

Bringing up the rear in the "very important" ranking were adviser communication and training at 30.4%, post settlement client support at 30.2%, useful digital tools and online resources at 38.8%, and call centre support at 20.5%.

ANZ's popularity among brokers may be of some comfort to the bank, given figures from its recent interim financial results show ANZ's home loan market share down to 29.8% as of March this year from 30.5% two years earlier.

In their recent interim results ANZ, BNZ and Westpac all provided data on the extent of their use of brokers. ANZ said 53% of its mortgage portfolio was broker originated as of March 31, up from 51% two years earlier.

In "by channel" data BNZ attributed 40% of its home loan book at March 2026 to brokers, up from 38% in September 2024. And the broker introduced percentage of Westpac's mortgage portfolio was 58% at March 2026 versus 56.7% in September 2025.

Brokers surveyed by Adaptive Intelligence were also asked; which of the following lenders have you submitted applications to in the last 12 months? ANZ came in first at 98%, followed by ASB at 94%, BNZ at 90%, Westpac at 90%, and at Kiwibank 64%. Of the smaller banks, SBS was at 25%, Co-op Bank at 24% and TSB at 15%. Leading non-banks were Avanti at 59%, Basecorp at 29% and Pepper at 21%.

In terms of business volume, surveyed brokers placed 86% with main banks being the big four and Kiwibank, just 6% with other banks, and 8% with non-banks.

The survey was completed by 224 brokers between April 2 and 10.

Adaptive Intelligence is run by Brendan Thawley of Evolv who has previously worked for BNZ and Bank West, and Andrew McCulley of McCulley Research, who has previously worked for ANZ and BNZ. Thawley says Adaptive Intelligence aims to provide an affordable way for smaller financial services firms to access good market insights.

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