Can I get a home loan with a non-bank lender as a first home buyer?

Yes. Non-bank lenders can and do write home loans to first home buyers in Australia. A non-bank lender is a lender that isn’t a bank, building society or credit union — it doesn’t hold a banking licence and can’t take customer deposits — but it can still originate and hold home loans, typically funding them through wholesale channels rather than deposits.

Are non-bank lenders regulated the same way as banks?

For the consumer-facing side of lending, yes. Any business providing credit assistance or acting as a credit provider for home loans — bank or non-bank — must hold an Australian Credit Licence and meet the same responsible-lending obligations under ASIC’s Regulatory Guide 209: reasonable inquiries into your situation, reasonable steps to verify it, and an assessment of whether you can meet the loan’s repayments without substantial hardship. RG 209 applies at the level of the credit licence, not at the level of who owns or funds the lender.

Where non-bank lenders differ is in prudential regulation. Banks, building societies and credit unions are authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs), supervised by APRA under prudential standards like APS 220 (which sets the minimum 3.0 percentage point interest-rate buffer ADIs must apply when assessing serviceability). Non-bank lenders don’t take deposits, so they sit outside that ADI-specific prudential framework — their obligations to you as a borrower still come from ASIC’s credit-licensing regime, not from APRA.

Can a non-bank lender offer the Home Guarantee Scheme (5% Deposit Scheme)?

The Australian Government’s 5% Deposit Scheme is delivered only through Participating Lenders — as at July 2026, more than 30 lenders take part on a list made up entirely of banks, building societies and credit unions, with no non-bank lender currently on it, and applicants can’t apply to Housing Australia directly. If a non-bank lender you’re considering isn’t a Participating Lender, that only affects your access to this particular scheme — it doesn’t affect their ability to lend to you on standard terms.

What’s different about borrowing from a non-bank lender?

Neither lender type is better or worse in the abstract — the factors below are what actually differ, and which of them matters depends on your own priorities:

How you interact with them. Some non-bank lenders operate online-only or through brokers, without branches — see our guide to whether online lenders are safe for how that affects service and support, not safety.
Product range and pricing. Both bank and non-bank lenders set their own rates, fees and loan features independently — comparing the comparison rate and features of a specific offer matters more than the lender type itself.
Scheme participation. As above, not every lender — bank or non-bank — participates in every government scheme; check the current Participating Lender list for the scheme you want to use, such as the Home Guarantee Scheme.
How you find them. A mortgage broker typically has access to both bank and non-bank panels; going direct usually means one lender at a time. Our guide to broker vs going direct sets out that trade-off.

Checking a lender before you borrow

Whichever type of lender you’re considering, you can confirm it holds an Australian Credit Licence and check its conditions on the public credit licensee registers ASIC maintains. Whether a bank or a non-bank lender suits you better depends on the specific loan, rate, features and service you’re offered — that’s a comparison worth doing loan-by-loan rather than lender-type by lender-type, and a licensed mortgage broker can help you run it.

Our guide to how much deposit you need for a first home covers the deposit side of the equation regardless of which lender you choose.