The big four have maintained their tight grip on the Australian mortgage market, with smaller lenders failing to attract substantial numbers of new borrowers.
Major banks held on to 86.7 percent of the home loan market in 2011, with the smaller lenders gaining just 0.6 percent of market share in the past year, data from BusinessDaily revealed.
Commonwealth Bank and its subsidiary BankWest lead the market with more than $300 billion on their mortgage books, the Herald Sun reported.
Westpac has the second-greatest number of mortgage assets, followed by NAB and ANZ.
Read more: How the Big Four can help first home buyers
The big four's continued hold of the market comes even as Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan launched a stinging attack on them in November 2010.
Mr Swan lashed out at the major lenders after they all lifted rates beyond the Reserve Bank's increase on Melbourne Cup Day.
The Federal Government has since introduced reforms to the banking system to allow smaller players to take a greater chunk of the market.
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