Growing our Clean Energy Home Loan

It’s been just over a year since we launched our Clean Energy Home Loan to incentivise customers to buy and build green homes or make ambitious green upgrades.

In that time, we’ve had over 140 households take up the loan, which is a result we’re really proud of.

The initial launch of the Clean Energy Home Loan was made possible with investment from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).

In January 2020, the CEFC announced investment of up to $60 million for Bank Australia to offer reduced interest rates for the Clean Energy Home Loan. Our customers took up the loan at twice the original rate we had predicted, which saw the CEFC extend its commitment and finance close to $90m of loans by April 2021.

Based on the success of the CEFC program, we’re thrilled to announce a permanent Clean Energy Home Loan product, which offers reduced interest rates for up to five years for qualifying homes.

Much about the product will stay the same to build on the success we’ve had so far: new homes will need to have a rating of 7 stars or higher under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS), which exceeds the current minimum in the construction code. Older homes can make ambitious green upgrades to qualify.

We want a future where people ask what the energy rating of their home is when they buy or build, and where energy efficiency is a key selling point for comfortable homes that are affordable to live in.

We want to grow the share of our loans that are supporting people to live more sustainably, but more importantly we want to see more lenders create incentives to make Australian homes greener and reward people taking positive climate action.

Buildings account for 23% of Australia’s total emissions, and about half of that is from homes. Making homes more efficient is essential to addressing the climate crisis. Our hope is that the Clean Energy Home Loan is a catalyst for green mortgages to become mainstream in Australia.

Damien Walsh

Managing Director, Bank Australia