Consumer Finance Awards 2025: Non-Bank Lender of the Year
La Trobe Financial has been named Money's Non-Bank Lender of the Year as part of the 2025 Consumer Finance Awards.
- Find out how we chose the winners
- Order your copy of the July awards issue
- Check out more from the 2025 Consumer Finance Awards
If you're a borrower who can't tick all the boxes, you'll probably find the major banks don't really want to know you. Providing tailored solutions for customers with more complex needs is increasingly the role of non-bank lenders.
And La Trobe Financial leads the pack winning this award in 2025 for the sixth consecutive year.
"Our strength is our solutions-based approach to credit," says Cory Bannister, La Trobe Financial's chief lending officer. "Our focus is on solving complex financial problems in a friendly human way."
Bannister says that while many lenders are moving toward automatable and one-size-fits-all products, La Trobe's credit team emphasises understanding the individual story behind each application.
"With over 70 years of experience and $20 billion in assets under management, we aim to blend institutional scale with a boutique service mindset," he says.
"Whether you're self-employed and need flexible income verification, an investor seeking personalised solutions, a homeowner looking for a refinance option outside traditional banking criteria, a property developer seeking more favourable terms than a private lender - or a combination of all of the above- we have a ready-made solution that can be tailored to the specifics of your circumstances," says Bannister.
Several offerings have helped distinguish La Trobe from the pack.
"Our range of residential loans have the flexibility that the self-employed or borrowers with unique financial profiles desire," he says.
"On the construction front our product suite caters for every stage of a property developer's business cycle, from acquisition right through to completion and beyond.
"Other noteworthy mentions would be our ability to offer higher loan-to-value ratios on large loans compared to most non-banks, assisting the up-sizers, and our bridging loans curated to assist those downsizing, or simply moving homes in a very tightly held property market."
La Trobe Financial is constantly looking for new ways to serve people facing funding challenges and to provide the financial solutions they need, according to Bannister.
"We're working on a number of exciting initiatives that we look forward to announcing later this year, which includes larger loan sizes, more flexibility for property developers with targeted pre-construction products, and a bigger credit team to provide services to the market even faster."
Resimac placed second. It provides home loan solutions to a wide range of customers including the self-employed and contractors, as well as customers with previous credit impairments through its network of more than 12,000 broker partners.
It promises a responsive and user-friendly experience to its customers on both its online Customer Zone portal or via our its new Resimac mobile app.
In third place, Firstmac aims to provide simple, affordable, and competitive financial products. Its website emphasises that helping people is its mission and that it is staffed by real people, not robots.
Why they won
Products to suit real people with complex needs.
Top products
Construction loans tailored for those dreaming of building a new home.
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