IN THE NEWS

Why we built Offsetcheck

On 29 July 2026, ASIC published the findings of its review into mortgage offset accounts — and ABC News told the story of the borrowers behind the numbers. That reporting is the reason this site exists. Below: what the regulator found, the coverage worth reading, and resources to check your own offset.

$55M+

Compensation paid by banks for offset failures, Sep 2023 – Aug 2025

SOURCE: ASIC 26-173MR

8 banks

Reviewed — more than 70% of Australia's $2.5 trillion home-loan market

SOURCE: ASIC 26-173MR

$349.1B

Held in offset accounts as of March 2026 — up 28% in two years

SOURCE: ASIC REP 837

204,000

Unique home loans examined in the review's data request

SOURCE: ASIC REP 837

The two pieces that started this

ASIC · MEDIA RELEASE 29 JUL 2026

Hidden mortgage offset failures costing Australians millions in lost interest savings

The regulator's announcement of review 26-173MR: banks paid over $55 million in compensation for offset failures, and weaknesses were found in how all eight reviewed banks set up, monitored and managed offset accounts.

"When offset accounts don't operate correctly, the harm can be hidden. Loan repayments stay the same, while customers unknowingly pay more interest and take longer to repay their loan."— Sarah Court, ASIC Chair
Read the media release
ABC NEWS 29 JUL 2026

Mortgage borrowers miss out on millions in offset savings due to bank failures, ASIC finds

The human side of the report. Brisbane homeowner Brooke discovered — only while refinancing — that her offset had been linked to the wrong loan, then fallen off entirely. The bank offered more than $5,000 in compensation, but she had no way to verify the figure.

"We had no idea how much money we were actually out of pocket."— Brooke, offset account holder
Read the article

Brooke's story is the precise problem Offsetcheck solves: never accept a compensation figure you cannot check. Upload your statements, re-calculate the daily offset benefit yourself, and compare it against what the bank actually gave you.

How offsets fail

Failure types identified by the banks in their own data responses to ASIC (REP 837).

Offset account opened but never linked to the loan55%
Offset account never opened at all22%
Linked later than the timeframe promised to the customer14%
Other failures9%

Earlier remediation tells the same story: Bankwest refunded about 10,800 customers $4.9 million in 2017, NAB refunded $1.7 million to 966 customers the same year, and in 2022 the Federal Court ordered ANZ to pay a $25 million penalty over unattached offset benefits. This is not a new problem — it is a newly measured one.

Resources and references

The reporting, the research, and the official guides. Everything below is external and independent of Offsetcheck.

Don't take the bank's word for it

Run your own statements through the check. Two minutes, to the cent, with the working shown.

Check my offset