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Beyond Bank has temporarily paused its acceptance of pre-approvals following a “recent surge” in application volumes that has coincided with the launch of the Australian government’s expanded 5% Deposit Scheme.
In an email seen by Broker Daily, the customer-owned lender told brokers that it would not accept any type of pre-approval applications for “a temporary period”.
During this period, new applications will only be assessed where the applicant has found a property and signed a contract of sale.
For land-and-construction scenarios, the lender requires the land contract upfront, the bank said. The building contract may be submitted later, but it must be on file before the application can go past conditional approval or before a valuation can be commissioned, the lender advised brokers.
Any pre-approval applications in the system prior to last Sunday (16 November) would be assessed as normal, according to Beyond Bank.
In its correspondence, the bank said it would advise brokers as soon as it was able to recommence accepting pre-approval applications.
Speaking to Broker Daily, Beyond Bank chief customer officer Nick May said: “This is normal business practice to manage home loan demand through third party (broker) channels.”
Hot housing market
The decision comes amid a surge in buyer activity, particularly among first home buyers taking up the government’s expanded 5% Deposit Scheme.
Figures from Housing Minister Clare O’Neil, seen by Broker Daily, show 5,778 first home buyer guarantees were issued under the scheme in October 2025, up 48 per cent on the 3,901 issued in October 2024.
“We know that people are doing it really tough when it comes to housing so I’m really happy that 5,778 first homes were bought with support from the Albanese Government in October,” she said.
“This means more people paying off their own mortgage and not someone else’s.
“We made a promise to first home buyers that we would help them and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
However, some had warned the scheme would boost demand and put further pressure on the housing system.
Indeed, as reported by Broker Daily sister brand The Adviser, the most recent Broker Pulse survey from Agile Market Intelligence has shown that strong demand is resulting in delays at the lenders. Brokers are experiencing delays in turnaround times, with every segment of the lending market having longer waits to reach an initial credit decision over the month of October, according to the survey.
Brokers responding to the Broker Pulse survey suggested that Beyond Bank was taking an average of five business days to reach an initial credit decision – one of the fastest times among the smaller banks.
[Related: Gen Z hungry to buy homes: Westpac]