Fixed Loans Surge Fivefold at Bendigo as Brokers Take the Lead

Bendigo Bank's second-half results reveal a dramatic shift to fixed rates and a broker channel revival that echoes across the market.

Broker Channel Rebounds as Bendigo Reveals FY26 Home Loan Results

The Adviser reports that Bendigo and Adelaide Bank ended the 2026 financial year with a smaller headline mortgage book, but its second-half results tell a strikingly different story — one of accelerating volumes, a broker channel renaissance and a dramatic shift toward fixed-rate borrowing.

The bank's home-loan book excluding portfolio funding stood at $64.6 billion at 30 June 2026, down from $65.1 billion a year earlier. But a closer look at the numbers reveals a second-half recovery well under way. Between December 2025 and June 2026, the book climbed from $63.4 billion, with residential lending growing 1.9 per cent across the half.

More telling than the balance-sheet headline is what drove the pickup. Bendigo wrote $9.1 billion in home loans in the second half of FY26, up sharply from $6.8 billion in the first half — a 34 per cent increase in settlements across just six months.

Brokers Now Write Nearly Half of All New Bendigo Mortgages

If there was a single standout story inside the results, it was the resurgence of the broker channel. Third-party lending accounted for 48 per cent of Bendigo's second-half residential loan flows, rising from 36 per cent in the first half. Brokers overtook the retail network to become Bendigo's single largest source of new mortgage business.

Across the full portfolio, the broker channel now represents 45 per cent of Bendigo's residential book, up from 43 per cent in December 2025. The bank acknowledged that annual third-party lending was still down 5.5 per cent as a result of its exit from the legacy mortgage partner channel, but the trajectory in the second half suggests that headwind has largely cleared.

For borrowers, this matters. Competition among channels — broker, branch, digital — tends to sharpen service standards and the speed with which applications are assessed. When brokers win a larger slice of a lender's book, lenders typically invest more in the turnaround times and policies that make them attractive to the third-party channel. If you are weighing up your options, comparing current offers at /home-loans/refinance is a sensible starting point.

Retail lending through Bendigo's Community Bank network and company-owned branches fell to 37 per cent of second-half flows, from 47 per cent in the first half. Digital channels — including NRMA, BEN Express, Timely, Qantas and Up — generated the remaining 15 per cent.

Despite the improved second-half result, Bendigo's residential growth continued to lag the broader market. Loans to households grew 3.9 per cent over the six months to June, compared with system growth of 6.5 per cent. Total lending across the group rose 1.5 per cent over the full year to $87.1 billion, and 3.5 per cent over the second half. Residential lending remained the dominant component of the balance sheet, with Victoria accounting for 38 per cent of the portfolio, followed by New South Wales at 25 per cent, Queensland at 16 per cent and Western Australia at 10 per cent.

The Fixed-Rate Shift That Should Catch Every Borrower's Attention

Perhaps the most striking data point in Bendigo's FY26 result is what happened to fixed-rate lending in the second half. Fixed mortgages accounted for 29 per cent of all new flows in 2H26 — up from just 6 per cent in the first half.

That is a dramatic five-fold increase in the share of borrowers choosing rate certainty over six months. It is a strong signal that a material portion of the market is hedging against further movement in the cash rate, or simply locking in a rate they feel comfortable with for the years ahead.

Variable-rate mortgages still dominated, representing 71 per cent of new flows, but the directional shift is clear and swift.

Fixed rates offer certainty — you know exactly what your repayments will be for the fixed term, regardless of what the Reserve Bank does. But they also come with trade-offs: break costs if you need to exit early, less flexibility to make extra repayments, and the risk that rates fall and you remain locked above market. Use the repayment calculator to model both scenarios side by side before committing.

For first-home buyers still stretching to meet repayments, a fixed rate can provide critical peace of mind. For investors or those expecting to sell or refinance within a couple of years, the break-cost exposure may outweigh the certainty benefit.

First-home buyers as a share of new lending also fell sharply, to just 6 per cent of second-half flows from 15 per cent in the first half — a sign that affordability constraints continue to bite hardest at the entry-level end. Investor activity strengthened modestly, with investors accounting for 27 per cent of 2H26 new flows, up from 26 per cent.

Bendigo's average loan balance rose to $480,000 at June 2026, from $473,000 six months earlier, reflecting continued property price growth despite broader affordability pressures. Residential arrears ticked up five basis points over the year to 0.87 per cent — a contained level, but a reminder that some borrowers are feeling real pressure in the current rate environment.

Meanwhile, digital bank Up continued its strong run, with its loan book growing 56.3 per cent to $2.6 billion over the year. Bendigo also confirmed that its acquisition of RACQ Bank's loan and deposit book is expected to complete in the first half of FY27, which will add further scale to its residential portfolio.

If you are weighing up whether the current rate environment is the right time to buy, refinance or lock in a fixed rate, speaking to a broker with access to Bendigo's full product range — alongside dozens of other lenders — is the best place to start. Understand your full capacity at the borrowing power calculator.