Corrects to overtake, not undertake, in quote in paragraph 5
Mortgage market share rose to 6.8% from 2.7% in five years
Macquarie relies on brokers, unlike rivals preferring in-house loan origination
Bank's digital model speeds up loan approvals, aiding market share gains
By Scott Murdoch
SYDNEY, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Macquarie Group MQG.AX aims to expand its presence in Australia's A$2.4 trillion ($1.7 trillion) mortgage market by betting on its broker network and faster loan approvals, a top executive said, having already more than doubled its market share in the past five years.
Macquarie, which is predominantly an investment bank and asset manager, saw its mortgage market share jump to 6.8% with A$172 billion worth of loans at end-December, up from 2.7% in 2020, according to regulatory data. Macquarie now ranks fifth behind the country's so-called 'big four banks' in the home lending market.
The bank will keep expanding mortgage market share, said Ben Perham, the head of Macquarie's personal banking unit.
"It's a very competitive market and we're going to have to work hard to remain competitive," Perham told Reuters. He did not comment on the bank's market share target.
"I think we feel a level of confidence we can continue to grow. I don't want to get drawn into whether we're going to overtake one of the majors or not. I think we'll just have to wait and see how time goes with that."
Macquarie's plans could weigh on the bigger players, including ANZ Group ANZ.AX and Commonwealth Bank of Australia CBA.AX, already facing pressure on margins due to competition and moves to rein in mortgage-related risks in a red-hot market.
ANZ and NAB NAB.AX each hold about 14% of the country's home loan market, while CBA is the biggest with at least 25% market share, data shows. JPMorgan has forecast Macquarie's market share could rise to more than 10% over time.
Macquarie, without a retail branch network, writes 95% of its home loans through mortgage brokers, in contrast to its rivals which are paring back their broker channel business and preferring to originate an increased share of loans in-house.
Proprietary mortgages, or those originated within the bank, are typically more profitable for banks.
Perham, however, said that Macquarie's fully digital and mortgage broker-based models have helped the bank speed up its approval process for loans, aiding its market-share gains from rivals.
"Three days is the average across the whole business," he said. "For a loan that arrives to us with all the documents we need to verify the information in it, we are regularly approving those loans in an hour, in a couple of hours."
Macquarie does not break out the profit contribution from its personal banking unit, which runs the mortgage business, but does count the business in its banking and financial services $(BFS)$ division.
That division accounted for A$793 million net profit in the first half of 2026, doubling from five years ago, in Macquarie's total A$1.65 billion net profit.
($1 = 1.4021 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Lincoln Feast)
((Scott.Murdoch@thomsonreuters.com;))