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Kiwibank, ASB gain in 2025's mortgage wars while ANZ loses

As the first-half results from Kiwibank and ASB Bank suggested, both gained significant mortgage market share through calendar 2025, while New Zealand’s largest bank was the biggest loser.

The Reserve Bank’s bank financial strength dashboard showed Kiwibank accounted for more than 13.5% of total net new bank mortgage lending in the December quarter of 2025 and for more than 12.4% in the calendar year.

Kiwibank’s net new mortgage lending grew by $860.5 million in the December quarter and by $2.69 billion in calendar 2025.

That meant its market share rose to more than 8% at the end of 2025 compared with less than 7.8% a year earlier.

Total net new mortgage lending by registered banks grew by $6.36 billion in the December quarter and by $21.61 billion in calendar 2025 to $385.38 billion, according to the dashboard.

Nevertheless, Kiwibank’s $30.97 billion mortgage book, as measured by the dashboard, at Dec 31, was still less than half the size of the mortgage book of the smallest mortgage lender among the big four Australian-owned banks, the National Australia Bank’s Bank of New Zealand, whose mortgage book ended 2025 at $64.97 billion.

BNZ’s market share at the end of 2025 of 16.86% of total bank mortgages was a little higher than 16.82% a year earlier.

BNZ lent a net $1.03 billion in new mortgages in the December quarter and nearly $3.8 billion in calendar 2025.

That’s despite BNZ’s renewed antipathy to clocking home loans originated by mortgage advisers.

ASB, which notably saw its mortgage book shrink by $518 million in the six months ended Dec 31, 2023, is clearly making up for lost time, with its book growing by $5.74 billion to $82.42 billion in calendar 2025, claiming nearly 26.6% of total bank mortgage lending in the year.

That took its market share to nearly 21.4%, up from its market share of just above 21% a year earlier.

ASB’s momentum slowed a little in the December quarter with its net new mortgage lending in the three months of $1.54 billion accounting for nearly 24.2% of net new bank mortgage lending.

ANZ Bank, New Zealand’s largest, saw its mortgage market share end 2025 at 29.85% compared with 30.2% a year earlier, with its mortgage book at $115.03 billion at Dec 31.

That’s because ANZ’s net new mortgage lending in the December quarter of $1.54 billion accounted for a little less than 24.2% of total net new mortgage lending while its net new mortgage lending in calendar 2025 accounted for a little more than 23.8% of total net new bank mortgage lending.

The fourth of the Australian-owned banks, Westpac, lost a little mortgage market share, easing to 18.67% from 18.76%, although its mortgage book grew by a net $1.26 billion in the December quarter, accounting for nearly 19.9% of net new bank mortgage lending, to $71.96 billion and by $3.69 billion in calendar 2025, or just over 17% of net new bank mortgage lending in the year.

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