CBA has been named as the second major to participate, in addition to NAB, the first bank to be announced as part of the scheme last week.

The non-major lenders which will be participating are:

• Australian Military Bank
• Auswide Bank
• Bank Australia
• Bank First
• Bank of us
• Bendigo Bank
• Beyond Bank Australia
• Community First Credit Union
• CUA
• Defence Bank
• Gateway Bank
• G&C Mutual Bank
• Indigenous Business Australia
• Mortgageport
• MyState Bank
• People’s Choice Credit Union
• Police Bank
• P&N Bank
• QBANK
• Queensland Country Credit Union
• Regional Australia Bank
• Sydney Mutual Bank and Endeavour Mutual Bank (divisions of Australian Mutual Bank Ltd)
• Teachers Mutual Bank Limited (including Firefighters Mutual Bank, Health Professionals Bank, Teachers Mutual Bank and UniBank)
• The Mutual Bank
• WAW Credit Union

NHFIC CEO Nathan Dal Bon said, “The panel announced today aims to provide the Scheme with geographical reach whilst promoting consumer choice and assisting first home buyers to own their first home sooner.”

The Customer Owned Banking Association (COBA) has celebrated the fact that 20 of the lenders named are customer owned banking institutions.

“This shows our sector’s strong commitment to serving first home buyers and providing competition and choice in the home loan market,” said Michael Lawrence, COBA CEO.

“Customer owned banking institutions are excited to work with the federal government to help more Australians enter the property market.

“We appreciate the government’s commitment to competition and choice by ensuring smaller lenders are so well represented in the scheme.”

The total home loan portfolio of the customer owned banking sector surpassed $92bn in the September quarter 2019.

Commenting on the selection, Steve James, CEO of Teachers Mutual Bank Limited said, “We believe our inclusion in this Scheme to be further endorsement of our home loan offering and superior member support.

“In 2018-19 we grew our home loan book at three times the average for the banking system (9.7%) and continued to attract more members and grow our community to over 205,000 Australians.”

According to HIA MD Graham Wolfe, the broad range of lenders selected is crucial to providing first home buyers “genuine choice.”

“It’s encouraging to see so many lenders wanting to be involved. Their commitment to offer the same interest rates to participants in the Scheme is also critical,” he said.