The latest APRA data shows dramatic shifts in where household deposits are flowing from and where they are flowing to

The pressure Macquarie has been putting on the household deposit market over the past nine months broke though in a significant way in January.

Macquarie has beefed up its marketing for new household deposits with aggressive hires of key people from rival banks, so it "knows where the bodies are buried". It has attacked with out-sized rate offers, ones its main rivals find hard to respond to because higher rate offers hurt their already large deposit books. For Macbank whose starting book is much small, the pain is very manageable.

Their pressure has been building for some time, but it really broke through in January 2026.

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The surprise is how weak Commbank's January share fell too.

But the big losers have been the challenger banks.

On the other hand, Westpac has managed to retain, even grow its share of household deposits.

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It does seem unlikely that Commbank will let this atrophy continue.

But Macbank is not taking its foot off the pedal. In January it won the most household deposit growth of any bank, the only one to raise its book by +$2 bln in that month.

Today it pushed up its rates again, by another +5 bps, which seems to be its new weekly habit. That has compounded taking its one year rate to 4.85%. "Everyone" will have to respond.

5% term deposit rates are within sight.

The worry for challenger banks is that many of them lead the rate-hike phasing, but it is Macbank winning the attention of savers, and the funds flows.