Turnaround times: how do the banks compare?

We asked a selection of leading brokers to give us their view on the best and worst banks for mortgage approvals since the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the home loan market. 

Seven in ten said ANZ currently had the worst turnaround times for home loans, taking more than ten working days to process loans. 

Advisers gave their views on condition of anonymity. 

One said ANZ was the worst "by a long long margin". "It's unacceptable," the broker said. 

Advisers hope ANZ's recent move to reallocate branch staff to process mortgage applications will help to improve turnaround times. ANZ has also hired more staff to its adviser processing team in recent weeks. 

"They have employed more people but it takes time to fix these sort of things," said one adviser. 

The bank says the economic crisis caused by Covid-19 has made processing home loans more difficult. It is also dealing with mortgage deferral requests, putting strain on the lender's resources: "There’s currently strong demand through our broker channel, and some of the conversations are more complex than usual due to Covid."

Three in ten people said ASB/Sovereign had the quickest turnaround times in the market. 

"Westpac and ASB are doing really well and are utilising the branch staff," one adviser said. "Sometimes those banks have a 48 hour turnaround."

One adviser gave all of the banks the thumbs down. 

"There’s not really one bank that stands out as being the worst turnaround times. They are all between eight and ten days. ANZ has taken on some new team members so hopefully they will improve."