Westpac updates self-employed loan policy to align with peers

Westpac this week announced plans to change its current mortgage requirements for self-employed loans. Under the changes announced by the bank, self-employed borrowers will now only require to provide one year of income (the most recent) for their lending application.

ANZ, CBA (including Bankwest) and NAB all have one-year assessment options up to 80% of loan to valuation ratio. Westpac now joins this group.

Flexdoc Founder Peter Esho welcomed the move and said "Westpac now joints its three other major bank beers in moving towards a one-year policy. We're continuing to see the major banks revise their self-employed policy to recognise the agile nature of small business. We need to see more common sense approaches to loan assessment for self-employed borrowers"

According to Westpac, there has been a 30% surge in lending to self-employed borrowers over the past year. Income from self-employed borrowers totals almost $30bn annually in Australia, and around 2.5 million people identify as self-employed.

While the major banks now all offer a one-year assessment option, non-bank specialists like Redzed, Pepper and Thinktank are also innovating with their own alternative income assessment options.

Flexdoc specialises in lending to self-employed borrowers and works with a panel of more than 40 lenders. We back business owners buying, building or refinancing their residential or commercial property. If you're self-employed and interested in learning more, click here to book a time with our team.