Business banking, deposits and proprietary home lending three pillars of growth for banking major
NAB saw an increasing share of new home lending business generated by proprietary loans in the past six months.
According to annual results published on Thursday, in-house loans generated 41.4% of new mortgage flows in the six months to September 2025, up from 39.9% in the previous year’s comparable period.
New business generated by brokers dipped from 60.1% to 58.6% over the same period.
The banking major attributed the increase in proprietary lending to onboarding approximately 270 new bankers and tools like CRM enhancements and banker incentives.
Broker-introduced loans still dominate the mortgage portfolio at 54% of the book as of September 2025 – this in fact increased from 52.8% in the previous year, suggesting brokers are still driving more balance sheet growth for the time being, even if NAB is tilting investment toward proprietary.
Read more: NAB's Adam Brown: Backing brokers, supporting customers
Over-occupier loans comprised 65.2% of the mortgage book, compared to investor loans of 34.8% – this has remained stable on a year-on-year basis.
NAB reiterated its three core pillars of growth as “business banking, deposits and proprietary home lending”. The strategy appears to be working.
Total Australian home loan balances increased 5.2% in the year to $364 billion, with system growth improving from 0.6-times in 2024 0.9-times in 2025.
In NAB’s business banking segment, roughly 70% of sales originated via the proprietary channel.
Group-wide net interest margins increased three basis points to 1.74%, although when excluding markets and treasury and lower liquid asset benefits, the NIM was down one basis point – reflecting margin compression pressures from higher deposit and wholesale funding costs.
“We are making good progress on our key priorities of growing business banking, driving deposit growth and strengthening proprietary home lending,” said chief executive Andrew Irvine (pictured). “This has been supported by targeted investments in front line bankers and technology-enabled solutions delivering simpler, faster and safer outcomes.
He added: “We remain optimistic about the outlook. NAB has a clear strategy and we are well placed to manage our bank for the long term and deliver sustainable growth and returns for shareholders.”
