Reported plans to slash home lending franchisee commissions comes amid large-scale restructuring at banking giant
A weekend AFR report on ANZ’s “war” with its 140-strong home lending franchisees painted a picture of a banking giant taking no prisoners in its battle to get the house in order.
ANZ in April reportedly drew plans to slash franchisees’ commissions from 0.65% to 0.5%, all the while doubling their administrative fees.
ANZ is unique among the Big Four in that it has a substantial cohort of mobile lending franchises, who sell only ANZ home loans, much in the way McDonald’s franchisees sell only Big Macs.
It’s not cheap to be a mobile lender – first there’s an upfront fee of $35,000, then an annual administration fee of $7,500. ANZ wanted to double the latter to $15,000.
“We have seen a structural change in the industry, margin compression and reduced returns remain a challenge that we must address to remain viable,” ANZ’s general manager of mobile home lending, Campbell Wright, reportedly told franchisees.
Following inevitable outrage from franchisees, ANZ reportedly agreed to increase the slashed commission to 0.57% and up the administrative fee in stages.
While these plans were drafted before Nuno Matos (pictured) took over as chief executive in July, the shock blindside against franchisees was nonetheless on brand for him.
Matos has stormed into his role as the tough guy, pledging to cut up to 3,500 staff and 1,000 external contractors.
The decision, which equates to almost 10% of the workforce, comes with a $560 million restructuring charge that will be booked in the full-year results due in November.
Laying out his plans, Matos said: “We are eliminating duplication and complexity, stopping work that doesn’t support our priorities and sharpening our focus on improving our non-financial risk management practices across the bank.”
But there are some substantial unknowns around what a restructured ANZ will look like, especially within the third party and franchise segments.
All options on the table under Matos
It is not clear how much ANZ’s mobile lenders make for the company. It is not disclosed in the bank’s financial statements, although the 2024 annual report partially attributed ANZ's 20% uptick in ‘markets other operating income’ to “increases in Franchise Revenue across most product groups from more favourable trading conditions and higher transaction activity”.
AFR quoted a franchisee who attributed around $6.5 billion in loan book volume to franchisees.
Based on those assumptions, ANZ pays out more than $40 million annually in franchise commissions at 0.65%, although this cannot be confirmed. This does not take into account annual trail commissions.
To put that into context, ANZ made more than $6.7 billion in cash profit in its 2024 financial year, which, in fairness, represented a 9% annual decline.
Yet ANZ is currently the smallest home lender among the Big Four.
Per Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) data, ANZ had $503.47 billion in residential loans and financial leases on its books as of July 2025. ANZ’s closest competitor NAB held over $640 billion.
All cards are on the table under Matos’ ambition to close the gap.
Third-party brokers, meanwhile, will continue to earn 0.6875% in commissions for originating home loans with ANZ, plus an annual trail commission starting at 0.165%, per mortgage aggregator Yellow Brick Road data.
Since ANZ mobile lending franchisees are required to complete a Certificate IV in Finance and Mortgage Broking if they come from a non-lending background, they already have the requisite accreditation to transition into mortgage broking.
Given how choppy the waters at ANZ seem to be, the transition could start to look quite appealing.
MPA has reached out to numerous ANZ home lending franchisees to get their input.
