Bank of QLD Home Loan Review (Updated 2026)

For many years, Bank of Qld ran a franchise model where over half of their branches were owner-managed franchises. But last year, they announced their intention to buy back their branches and get full control by March 2025.

BOQ is one of Queensland’s most popular banks, offering really sharp interest rates and some good home lending products.

In recent years, BOQ bought Virgin Money and Investec (now called BOQ Specialist), which has given it a large base of younger clientele and medical professionals like doctors and specialists.

In this article, we review Bank of Queensland’s (BOQ) home loans and put them through their paces. We also highlight how working with a mortgage broker in Brisbane can get you the best interest rates at BOQ.

Note that this review, interest rates, and product information are correct as of 7 January 2025, and all of this information is subject to change without further notification. Any credit applications are subject to meeting the specific bank’s criteria, and the decision is at their final discretion.

What Are BOQ's Home Loans Like?

The top 5 things BOQ are good at.

Super High Customer Satisfaction: BOQ customers gave the bank high scores for service, friendliness and responsiveness.
Great Interest Rate Discounts: If you are applying at the right time, Bank of QLD can give lots of really good interest rate discounts. These discounts include special variable rates on loans with higher deposit amounts like 20%.
Special rates for professionals. If you’re a lawyer, doctor, dentist or sports professional, then BOQ can be right for you.
A comprehensive suite of commercial loans and business products. When it started in Queensland, BOQ initially catered for smaller businesses, and now they have a really strong range of business accounts, commercial property loans and credit cards for businesses.
Community members involved in the branches. A large part of Bank of QLD’s marketing strategy is supporting their local communities. The branches get involved in many community partnerships and fundraising activities provided they align with their business objectives and support their core beliefs.
Complicated home loan applications involving trusts. The Bank of Queensland is surprisingly good at dealing with home loan applications involving companies and trusts. They will allow Hybrid Trusts as acceptable borrowers (many banks do not allow this type of entity) where the LVR is 80% or less.

Top 5 things BOQ aren't so good at.

Interest Only Home Loans. Being a smaller bank with investor lending limitations imposed by APRA, BOQ cannot be highly competitive on interest-only home loan products. Compared to the larger banks, BOQ’s interest-only interest rates are slightly higher and less flexible.
Strict credit criteria. They can be much tougher around the type of employment and how they verify your income. For example, if you are buying a home and are borrowing 85% of the property value, BOQ will require your payslip, and they will also ring your employer to verify you are working there.
Slower Home Loan Approvals: BOQ offers really good interest rates throughout the year, which can cause a massive influx of home loan applications and slow down their credit and processing teams. This has caused internal processing issues in the past, and it can take weeks for home loans in QLD to get approved.
Properties that are unique: The bank has much stricter criteria for properties in mining towns, high-density apartments and units, and other unique types of properties. For example, there are limitations in the maximum lending limits if you are buying an apartment in Brisbane (postcode 4000), Newstead (postcode 4007) or Teneriffe (postcode 4005) in Queensland.
People with bad credit: Due to their credit policy, the Bank of QLD cannot help people with bad credit. However, if the LVR is under 80%, BOQ might consider a lower credit score on a case-by-case basis.

What Are The Different Home Loan Products They Offer?

Bank of Queensland offers a wide range of Home loan products, and the 4 most popular include:

1. Fixed Rate Home Loan

BOQ’s Fixed Rate Home Loan products help protect you against interest rate rises, giving you a fixed term of between 2 to 5 years, where you can lock in your interest rate repayments, and benefits include:

Maximum loan term of 30 years
No minimum loan amount
Fix your rates for 2-5 years
Borrow up to 95% of the property value, including Lenders Mortgage Insurance (on principal and interest lending)
Interest-only payments available
Repayments can be set at weekly, fortnightly or monthly intervals
Additional repayments of up to $10,000 per year.

Fixed Break costs could apply if you repay the loan early.

2. Economy Variable Home Loan (also known as a basic home loan)

A basic home loan is just that: a cheap and cheerful loan—but it has fairly limited features and very few fees. You can save money using a basic product like the Economy Variable home loan if you do not need any other fancy features like an offset account and discounts on credit cards.

The features of the Economy Variable Home Loan include:

Available on owner-occupied and investment housing
Redraw is available with a minimum of $100, and no redraw fees apply
Split Loans available
Interest-only payments available
90% Maximum LVR
Construction home loans aren’t available on this product
Mortgage offset is not available
One free valuation per application

The downside to this product is that it is only available for new lending, so if you are an existing BOQ customer, you cannot switch to this product.

3. Commercial Rate Loan

In Queensland, BOQ has a fairly strong Commercial Rate Loan offering. This is a fully secured investment product created for property developers and property investment for business acquisition purposes. They can use a residential property as security, in addition to commercial property, business assets and directors’ guarantees.

The features include:

BOQ Commercial Rate Loan has variable, fixed and capitalised interest options
Repayments can be 1, 2, and 3 months in arrears
You can prepay your interest for up to 1 year
Minimum loan amount of $500,000
The application fee is 0.75% of the approved limit, and the minimum fee is $750.
Monthly service fee is $50 per month
You can fix your interest rates for up to 5 years.

This product is fairly popular with Property Developers and Investors in Queensland. The actual interest rate margin is priced on risk, but if Bank of QLD is interested in a particular asset or developer, it will price to compete against some of the biggest banks out there.

4. Clear Path Variable Home Loan

The Clear Path Variable Home Loan is cheap, has all the features and offers a low rate.

This is their most popular low-rate home loan and includes the following features:

Borrow up to 95% of the property’s value with Lenders Mortgage Insurance
No application fee
One free valuation
Unlimited free redraw
100% mortgage offset account
Weekly, Fortnight and Monthly repayments
Also available for construction loans
Available for all loan amounts

What Are BOQ Home Loan Interest Rates?

BOQ regularly offers special rates directly to Mortgage Brokers that they do not openly advertise. If you would like to know more information, call us at 1300 088 065 or get in touch here.

Our mortgage brokers can help arrange larger-than-standard discounts. Call us on 1300 088 065 or get in touch to chat.

The following table is an overview of the current interest rates that BOQ is offering for owner occupiers, principal and interest payments.

Product	Interest Rate	Comparison Rate
Economy variable	6.18%	6.33%
Clearpath variable	6.39%	6.53%
Fixed Rate – 3 years	6.04%	6.41%
Fixed Rate – 5 years	6.34%	6.49%

What Documents Does Bank Of QLD Need For A Home Loan?

Bank of QLD’s application checklist is fairly standard compared to most banks. Let’s say you are a salaried employee and you are purchasing your first home; they would ask for the following:

Signed Application Form and Privacy Act form completed by all borrowers
Identification documents: Current Medicare + Drivers license or Australian passport
3 Months’ Bank statements showing your salary credits with the name of your employer
2 Most Recent Computer-Generated Payslips
Evidence of your Genuine Savings, which are statements to show the funds have been held for more than 3 months.
Most recent statements showing all continuing liabilities, i.e., any open credit card, personal loan, or overdraft statements.
Signed Contract of Sale
Proof of deposit

BOQ has very tight lending criteria and requires your payslips and bank statements to be no more than 45 days old at the time of application. They are a bit different from some of the bigger lenders because they require more information if you are in casual employment, contract employment, or receive bonuses and commissions. You can download their application form here.

If you are self-employed, you must provide the last two years of individual or company tax returns.
If you are in casual employment, you must be in the same role for at least 6 months. They will need your 2 most recent payslips AND the most recent year’s PAYG Payment Summary (also known as a group certificate).
If you are in contract employment, they need your 2 most recent payslips AND a copy of your employment contract with evidence of the remaining contract term.
If you receive a bonus, regular commission or overtime, they will need your 2 most recent payslips AND evidence of at least 3 months minimum employment with the same employer with the most recent year’s PAYG Payment Summary (also known as a group certificate) AND confirmation from your employer that overtime is a condition of employment.
If you are over 44 years old and will be over 69 years old at the end of the loan term, BOQ will need details on how you will continue making loan repayments or be able to reduce your home loan upon retirement. There are strict criteria if your superannuation will form part of this. They will require additional evidence of your superannuation balances through a statement.
For most applicants, these aren’t extremely onerous conditions compared to some lenders. But if you are over 44 years old, there are a few more questions to answer, so we rated them 3.5 out of 5 in terms of documents required.

BOQ need more documents — BOQ requires more documents than the other banks

Check to see if you are eligible for a home loan

How Much Can I Borrow From the Bank Of QLD?

Bank of Queensland’s credit criteria are subject to change at any time, and all lending is up to credit verification and satisfactory approval. But as an indication, we have run the following scenario through their borrowing calculator:

A single person living in Brisbane (In the 4000 postcode)
Earning $70,000 PAYG salary income
Average monthly expenses of $2,000
Has a credit card of $5,000 and no other debts
Assuming this person has a 20% deposit as genuine savings
Loan period of 30 years
Interest rate of 6.18 %

In this scenario, the person can borrow up to $309,823

We ran the figures through our serviceability calculator and got the following results

As you can see from the results, BOQ is at the upper end of providing borrowing capacity compared to the list of other lenders and around $67,000 higher, with a borrowing capacity of up to $418,149

These figures are indicative and would be subject to meeting credit criteria, valuation and satisfactory verification of all supporting documentation.

Would you like to know your borrowing capacity? Please chat with our home loan experts to see what you can afford.

What Else Does BOQ Offer?

BOQ is a fully licensed bank, similar to most of Australia’s big 4 banks like the Commonwealth, Westpac or even smaller credit unions like Gateway Bank.

The Bank of Queensland gives you access to home loans, transaction accounts, personal loans, savings accounts and insurance. Unlike their subsidiary, BOQ Specialist, they have all sorts of customers.

How Is Owner-manager Banking Different From Regular Banking?

An owner-manager branch is similar to a regular bank branch. You can go there and make deposits, withdraw cash, and complete your regular banking (assuming you need a branch).

The majority of our customers these days conduct 99% of their banking online, so a regular branch or owner-manager branch makes very little difference.

The disadvantage of Bank of Queensland is a lack of branches if you are located outside of Brisbane.

What Are Some BOQ Customer Reviews?

As we covered above, BOQ’s customer satisfaction ratings are among the highest for an Australian bank.

The reviews of Bank of QLD online can be fairly mixed.

Is BOQ An Ethical Australian Bank?

Believe it or not, there are actually environmentally friendly and ethical banks in Australia.

According to Market Forces, a bank is considered ethically responsible if it discontinues funding fossil fuels and uses best practices to sustain the environment.

Bank of Queensland was previously involved in unethical ventures and had invested directly in fossil fuels, including a $16.4 million exposure to coal mining services as of 31 August 2020.

Fortunately, since then, BOQ has stopped directly funding fossil fuels and has committed to cease funding for equipment directly involved in the extraction of fossil fuels by 2024

They have even created a sustainability page detailing BOQ’s commitment to reducing their environmental impact.

So if working with an ethical bank is important to you, BOQ is definitely on its way to cleaning up its act – but probably not as good as some of the other Ethical Banks like Suncorp Bank, which has no exposure to fossil fuel companies.

Would you like to learn about your situation?

How Does BOQ Compare To Other Banks?

Overall, each bank and credit union has its own advantages and disadvantages, which will depend on your personal situation.

which bank you choose is up to you — Whether or not BOQ is right for you depends on your personal situation.

For example, BOQ might be perfect for one person, but another bank may work better for the next person. So, how BOQ compares to other banks is ultimately determined by what you are looking for.

Bonus: Discontinued Products BOQ

BOQ is NO LONGER offering the following products and services:

Home Loan Privileges Package.
Standard Variable Home Loan.
Low Doc Loan.
Smart Start (Discount Variable Home Loan).
Queenslander Home Loan.
Queenslander Advantage Home Loan Package.
Clear Path Line of Credit.
Personal Overdraft.
Bridging Finance Loan.
Interest prepaid loan
Intro Rate Variable Home Loan
1 Year Fixed Rate Home Loan

If you are a BOQ customer of these products, you can contact your local branch.

Next Steps And Getting Your Home Loan.

Are you ready to buy your home? Our team at Hunter Galloway is here to help you buy a home in Australia. Unlike other mortgage brokers who are just one-person operations, we have an entire team of experts dedicated to helping make your home loan journey as simple as possible.

If you want to get started, please give us a call on 1300 088 065 or book a free assessment online to see how we can help.

If you want to get started, please call us on 1300 088 065 or book a free assessment online to see how we can help.

hunter galloway - mortgage broker brisbane team — Our team of home loan experts is here to help you buy a home in Australia.