The rain didn’t dampen spirits at Bankwest’s Sydney celebration on Friday.
More than 300 people from Australia's mortgage broking community — from brokers to BDMs to lenders to aggregators — braved the Autumn weather as they headed to the W Hotel in Sydney to sip sparkling wine and nibble on Poke Bowls during Bankwest's 2026 New South Wales Broker of the Year Awards.
Guests enjoyed live music at the awards ceremony.
"It's a celebration first and foremost; it's a reminder of Bankwest being the broker bank," Ian Rakhit, Bankwest's general manager home buying distribution, (pictured above) told Australian Broker. "It's our way of saying thank you for a really good year, whether that is a good year in terms of you've helped us with customers, or you've helped Australians gain home ownership, [or] you've also contributed to Bankwest in terms of how you've helped us become better. You've helped our proposition; you've helped what we offer to brokers, because you're the people seeing the customers, [and you] are able to inform us what we should build and where we should invest our investment dollars.
"And it's quite informally a good way of also connecting on a different level than just a business meeting," he added.
Guests pose for photos during the event. Photo by Kellie Ell
Bankwest, which is a division of Commonwealth Bank (CBA), began celebrating brokers 18 years ago in Perth, slowly adding other states along the way as broker share grew.
Today, brokers account for more than 75% of new residential home loans, while Bankwest hosts awards ceremonies in Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia, with Tasmania joining the lineup for the first time in 2026. The event is set for 14 April.
In Sydney, 11 awards were handed out at the NSW ceremony, including the "Broker of the Year" award, which went to Michael Xia, founder and broker at Mortgage Channel, and the lender's most recent inductee into the Bankwest Hall of Fame, Shane Petros, managing director of Australian Finance Hub.
Michael Xia accepts the Broker of the Year award for NSW. Photo by Kellie Ell
"I want to thank Bankwest for an amazing year," Xia said.
Rakhit said finalists are judged on both brokers’ performance with Bankwest, as well as broader contributions across the industry.
"It's not entirely numerate," the executive explained. "But numbers do play a part."
Criteria includes things such as broker net promoter score, arrears rates, conversions and brokers' individual contributions to the marketplace.
"So it's not just the person who has the best customer score, or the person who has the lowest rework [rate]," Rakhit said. "It's a culmination of all those factors. We don't want to miss the value of the individual."
Rakhit and the state managers form the judging panel that determines the winners.
Bankwest's 2026 NSW Broker of the Year awards.
More than 300 people attended Bankwest's 2026 Broker of the Year awards. Photo by Kellie Ell
Rakhit said 94% of Bankwest's home loans are written by brokers, with 9.7% of all broker loans across the country written by Bankwest brokers, as of December 2025.
"And our ambition is to get to 12%; we have an ambition to be the best broker bank in Australia," Rakhit said. "Customers like and value the expertise of a broker, in increasing numbers. They value that human-to-human connection.
"It's that kind of return on investment that allows us to continue to push ahead with our solutions," he added.
Other growth areas include self-employed, ex-pats and residential property investors. Bankwest also plans to expand its 80% segment for first-time homebuyers who want to borrow more than 80%, as well as adding new credit policies.
"We will have credit policies that no one else offers in the market," Rakhit said.
In February, Bankwest ended its long-term relationship with LMI provider QBE, and has since signed with Arch.
