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Another major bank could soon join CBA and NAB in offering home loans for Australians eligible for the Home Guarantee Scheme (HGS).

The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC) has commenced a request for proposal (RFP) process which opens the door for either ANZ or Westpac to join the major bank lender panel of the HGS.

The recent amendments to NHFIC’s Investment Mandate removed the two-major-bank limit, which allowed for the RFP process to commence.

The scheme, which comprised the First Home Guarantee (FHBG) — previously known as the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme — and the Family Home Guarantee (FHG), is currently available to homebuyers through CBA, NAB, and 30 non-major lenders.

The RFP closes on 12 August 2022 and the decision to appoint any new lenders to the panel is expected in early September.

New additions to the lender panel will be able to offer the scheme from 30 September 2022.

The NHFIC recently appointed five new lenders joining the non-major panel: Credit Union SA, Illawarra Credit Union, IMB Bank, Newcastle Permanent Building Society, and Unity Bank.

Here’s a list of the current members of the HGS lender panel.

  1. Australian Military Bank
  2. Australian Mutual Bank
  3. Auswide Bank
  4. Bank Australia
  5. Bank First
  6. Bank of Heritage Isle
  7. Bank of Us
  8. bcu
  9. Bendigo Bank
  10. Beyond Bank Australia
  11. Border Bank
  12. Community First
  13. Credit Union SA
  14. Defence Bank
  15. Firefighters Mutual Bank
  16. G&C Mutual Bank
  17. Gateway Bank
  18. Great Southern Bank
  19. Health Professionals Bank
  20. Indigenous Business Australia
  21. Illawarra Credit Union
  22. IMB Ltd (trading as IMB bank)
  23. Mortgageport
  24. MyState Bank
  25. Newcastle Permanent Building Society
  26. P&N Bank
  27. People's Choice
  28. Police Bank
  29. Q Bank
  30. Queensland Country Bank
  31. Regional Australia Bank
  32. Teachers Mutual Bank
  33. The Mutual Bank
  34. UniBank
  35. Unity Bank Limited
  36. WAW

Double places for first-home buyers

The NHFIC eyes doubling the number of available places for the scheme to up to 50,000 for the 2022-2023 financial year, which will include 10,000 places in the Regional First Home Buyer Support Scheme.

The First Home Guarantee’s available places will now by 35,000 per financial year, up from the previous annual allocation of 10,000.

Meanwhile, the Family Home Guarantee will have an annual allocation of 5,000 places from 1 July 2022 until 30 June 2025.

The NHFIC also announced new price caps for the properties eligible for the scheme.

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