Eight years ago, Macquarie made two decisions that barely registered at the time: it exited its referral program and went all-in on the broker channel.
Today, those choices are compounding into an advantage its rivals are finding increasingly difficult to close.
In the 12 months to the end of January, Macquarie grew owner-occupier lending by around $20 billion — just $450 million less than Commonwealth Bank, the largest bank in the country, added over the same period. That gap between a retail bank one-fifth the size of CBA and the market leader has, in effect, become a rounding error.
It marks out CBA as the only major that appears capable of still matching it. Over the same period, Macquarie wrote 20% more owner-occupier loans than NAB, 42% more than Westpac and almost three times more than ANZ.
