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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →Queensland's two best-known bank brands are holding fewer home loans each month. Monthly figures from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) for May 2026, analysed by The Adviser on Wednesday 1 July, show Bank of Queensland's home loan book fell by $0.97 billion in the month to $51.4 billion, a drop of 1.84 per cent. Suncorp Bank's slipped 0.32 per cent to $57.1 billion. It was the twenty-second month in a row that BOQ's book had contracted, according to the same analysis.
Over the same month Macquarie Bank added $3.13 billion of home loans, and each of the four major banks grew. The total market is still expanding. The two Brisbane names are simply not where the growth is going.
APRA Monthly Authorised Deposit-taking Institution Statistics for May 2026, as analysed by The Adviser on 1 July 2026.
What the May figures show
APRA publishes, every month, the value of loans each bank holds. The housing line counts loans to owner-occupiers and to investors that sit on the bank's own balance sheet. A book grows when new lending exceeds what existing customers repay, refinance away or pay out when they sell; it shrinks when the reverse is true.
For BOQ the fall in May was broad. Owner-occupier loans dropped by $0.70 billion, or 1.91 per cent, to $35.8 billion. Investor loans dropped by $0.27 billion, or 1.70 per cent, to $15.6 billion.
Suncorp Bank's decline was gentler and concentrated among owner-occupiers, whose loans fell 0.44 per cent to $39.8 billion. Its investor book was almost unchanged at $17.3 billion, down 0.04 per cent.
The table sets the two beside the lenders that grew. It ranks them by the size of the home loan book at the end of May.
Related readGreat Southern Bank grows home loans 7.6% with first buyers in front| Lender | Home loans | Change in May |
|---|---|---|
| Commonwealth Bank | $630.5bn | Up 0.47% |
| Westpac | $514.8bn | Up 0.48% |
| NAB | $349.7bn | Up 0.36% |
| ANZ | $327.8bn | Up 0.57% |
| Macquarie Bank | $180.3bn | Up 1.77% |
| ING | $73.6bn | Up 0.62% |
| Bendigo and Adelaide Bank | $64.4bn | Up 0.41% |
| Suncorp Bank | $57.1bn | Down 0.32% |
| Bank of Queensland | $51.4bn | Down 1.84% |
| HSBC | $34.9bn | Up 0.44% |
APRA monthly banking statistics for May 2026, as reported by The Adviser on 1 July 2026. The Adviser lists Suncorp Bank separately from its owner, ANZ.
Together the two Queensland brands held $108.5 billion of home loans at the end of May. Macquarie alone held $180.3 billion, and has been adding about 2 per cent a month, a pace The Adviser describes as leading the system. None of the four major banks grew by more than 0.6 per cent.
A second month of the same pattern
May was not a one-off. The Adviser's analysis of the April figures, published on 2 June, showed the same two names going backwards. BOQ's book slipped 0.19 per cent in April to $52.4 billion. Suncorp Bank's fell by $0.38 billion, or 0.65 per cent, to $57.3 billion.
Across the two months, BOQ's home loans went from $52.4 billion to $51.4 billion, and the May fall was almost ten times the size of April's in percentage terms. Suncorp Bank moved the other way in degree: its April decline of 0.65 per cent was about twice its May decline of 0.32 per cent.
Macquarie's April was stronger still than its May. It added $3.52 billion that month, growth of 2.03 per cent, to reach $177.2 billion. In two months it has added more than $6.6 billion, which is more than a tenth of Suncorp Bank's entire home loan book.
One more detail from April is worth keeping. At BOQ that month, owner-occupier loans fell 0.38 per cent while investor loans rose 0.25 per cent. In May both fell. Whatever was holding up the investor side in autumn did not last into the month of the federal Budget's changes to the tax treatment of investment property.
Related readPre-approval explained: what a conditional approval is and is notWhy the two books are shrinking
The Adviser's reports give a specific reason for each bank, and they are different.
BOQ stopped taking new home loans through mortgage brokers under its main brand in the middle of 2024, the publication notes, while continuing to write loans through its subsidiary ME Bank. Its 2 June report adds that BOQ Specialist also remains open to brokers. The decision carries a cost in volume. Mortgage brokers arranged 81 per cent of new home loans in the March quarter of 2026, according to Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia figures reported on 10 June. A brand that does not take broker business is competing for the remaining fifth of the market, plus whatever its branches and website bring in. Twenty-two months of contraction covers roughly the period since the pause.
A shrinking book is not necessarily a problem for a bank. A lender can choose to write fewer home loans because the margins on them are thin, and put its capital elsewhere. The figures show the result of the choice, not whether it was a good one.
Suncorp Bank's position is one of transition. It is now owned by ANZ, and the 2 June report says it is scheduled to be integrated into ANZ by 30 June 2027. A bank preparing to be absorbed into a larger one has less reason to chase growth under its own name. There are signs it is still competing on price: Savings.com.au reported on 3 July that Suncorp had cut fixed rates by up to 80 basis points and trimmed its basic variable rate, taking the owner-occupier rate on that product to 6.08 per cent for borrowers with a loan of 60 to 70 per cent of the property's value. The same report describes Suncorp as the eighth-largest home lender in the country, which matches its place in the table above.
Related readHow lenders work out borrowing capacity: income, expenses, bufferWhat it means for customers of either bank
For someone who already has a home loan with BOQ or Suncorp Bank, a shrinking book changes nothing in the loan. The interest rate, the repayments, the offset account and the terms of the contract are what they were. A bank's size does not alter a borrower's obligations or rights.
A change of owner does not rewrite a loan contract
A home loan is a contract, and as a general rule it continues on its terms when the lender is bought or merged. Suncorp Bank's integration into ANZ is scheduled for completion by 30 June 2027, according to The Adviser, and nothing reported so far changes existing customers' loans.
The figures are more relevant to people choosing a lender. A Queensland buyer who uses a broker will not be shown a loan from the main BOQ brand, because the bank is not accepting broker applications under it. A buyer who wants one has to approach the bank directly. Moneysmart, the consumer site of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, suggests asking any broker which lenders they cannot access, and this is a local example of why.
For regional Queensland the question is presence more than price. Nothing in the APRA figures speaks to branches, and a smaller loan book is not a branch closure. APRA's statistics are also national: they do not say where a bank's borrowers live, so they cannot show how much of either bank's decline is in Queensland. What they do show is that the banks carrying the state's name are taking a smaller part in the growth of home lending than lenders based elsewhere.
The wider contest
The May figures also show where the competition is fiercest. Investor lending grew faster than owner-occupier lending at each of the major banks for which The Adviser gives both figures. ANZ's investor book rose 1.08 per cent to $111.5 billion, against 0.57 per cent for its housing book as a whole. Westpac's investor loans rose 0.68 per cent and Commonwealth Bank's 0.56 per cent, each ahead of the bank's owner-occupier growth.
Those figures are balances at the end of May, and many of the loans behind them were applied for before the Budget. The Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Board, in the minutes of its June meeting published on 30 June, said housing credit growth looked set to slow, citing higher interest rates and the tax changes for investors. If that proves right, the monthly gains in the table will get smaller for everyone, and lenders that are already shrinking will feel it first.
What comes next
APRA releases the statistics for each month around the end of the following month, so the June figures are due at the end of July. They will show a full month of lending after the Reserve Bank's decision on 16 June to leave the cash rate at 4.35 per cent, and the first full month after the Budget.
Two things are worth watching in them for Queensland. One is whether BOQ's fall of 1.84 per cent in May was an unusually large month or the start of a faster decline. The other is whether Suncorp Bank's fixed-rate cuts show up as a steadier book. Either way, the direction of the past two months is clear: the state's home-grown bank brands hold a smaller share of the country's home loans than they did, while lenders from outside the state keep growing.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
