Little change is mortgage lenders' market share

Despite the revival of a number of specialist mortgage lenders' businesses over the past couple of years, helped by the recovery in the securitisation market, market shares in the mortgage market have remained remarkably stable.

According to mortgage aggregator AFG, the major banks accounted for 74.7 per cent of the loans written by its brokers in April, compared with 74.5 per cent in May last year.

Over the course of the past 12 months the majors' share of AFG's business dipped to 69.8 per cent in November but by January had bounced back to 74.8 per cent.

Among the 18 "non-majors" listed in the AFG's competition index, only eight get more than one per cent of AFG's business. The biggest of them, Macquarie Bank, has lost share over the past 12 months - falling from 6.8 per cent in May last year to 5.6 per cent in April.

Suncorp and Citibank have lost share, while ING Direct, AMP Bank and Bank of Queensland have gained a little share.

The majors have a higher share of the investor market, with 77.3 per cent of AFG's lending to property investors in April. That share has also been fairly constant over the past 12 months.

One smaller lender with a relatively high share of AG's investor lending is Macquarie Bank, with a 6.4 per cent share.

The majors have a much smaller share in the fixed rate segment - just 53.4 per cent in April.  The lender with the biggest share of AFG's fixed rate business in April was ME Bank, with 14.6 per cent.