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While trust and company lending remain key tools for property investors, recent shifts in the landscape have reshaped the playing field for many borrowers.
Broker Daily and its sister brand The Adviser have reported extensively on these developments, starting in October 2025 when Macquarie Bank advised brokers of its decision to pause all new lending to trusts and companies.
Since then, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Westpac, and the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) have all followed suit, tightening eligibility criteria and, in some cases, reducing maximum loan-to-value ratios for company and trust borrowers.
But what does this mean for borrowers and the brokers who advise them?
What’s driving the shift?
The new ebook, Who can you trust? The new world of trust and company lending, brings together insights from Bluestone Home Loans, Brighten, RedZed, and Thinktank, offering a clear view of the market, practical guidance on what lenders look for in complex submissions, and case studies showing how lenders are currently supporting borrowers.
Broker Daily spoke to four leading industry figures to understand the forces behind the changing lender appetite for these structures.
Tony MacRae, chief commercial officer at Bluestone Home Loans, said regulatory pressures have likely impacted banks’ thinking in this area.
“I think we’re in part of that cycle where banks get to a certain quota and then pull back because they don’t want to overload a certain area,” he said.
“Also, undoubtedly, we’ve seen APRA starting to show signs of a little bit of nervousness of the growth in the investor space, and trusts and companies are clearly big players there. And this could be part of a reaction to subtly and slowly control the volume of investor lending.”
Meanwhile, Jason Azzopardi, CEO of Brighten, commented on investor limits and the complexity of underwriting a trust deal.
“Underwriting a trust deal is not simple. Major banks are operating at significant scale and increasingly rely on automation to manage volume efficiently,” he said.
“Trust structures involve nuances that don’t easily lend themselves to automated assessment. They require time, judgement and specialised expertise. That’s likely one factor.”
For Nathan Taddeo, general manager of sales and strategic partnerships at RedZed, the moves may reflect some of the big-name lenders having reached their comfort level.
“When any of the big-name lenders pull out of a segment, it’s natural for people to question why, and whether there’s an underlying risk,” he said.
“From what I’ve seen, however, it may simply be a case of the major banks reaching their comfort level. What is clear is that activity remains strong across the board.”
And Belinda Wright, general manager of sales at Thinktank, highlighted the growing complexity involved in handling these types of applications.
“Trust and company borrowers often involve multiple entities, varied income streams, dispersed liabilities, guarantor overlays, serviceability subtleties and non-standard securities – factors that can increase workloads and affect SLAs for lenders not equipped for complex submissions at scale,” she said.
Who can you trust?
For brokers, this shift presents both challenges and opportunities.
Those who understand structuring, documentation, and lender appetite are well-positioned to act as indispensable advisers in an increasingly specialised segment.
For more insights, download Broker Daily’s new ebook here.
[Related: Macquarie Bank to pause new lending to trusts and companies]
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