Should You Refinance Your Commercial Loan With the Same Bank or Switch Lenders? (2026)

Should You Refinance Your Commercial Loan With the Same Bank or Switch Lenders? (2026)

Your current bank can often fix a stale rate in one conversation. The market decides whether the fix goes far enough.

What are your options when your commercial loan rate looks stale?

Stay or switch is the usual framing. In practice there are three paths, and the cheapest is the one almost nobody writes about. Repricing means asking your current lender to sharpen the rate on the loan you already have; nothing else changes. An internal refinance, sometimes called a restructure, is a new or rewritten facility with the bank you already use, for when the existing contract cannot deliver a different term, a split, an equity release or a product move. A full switch is what most people mean by refinancing: a new lender assesses the deal, pays out your existing loan and registers a new mortgage.

Our pillar guide covers when a full refinance actually pays off; if the debt is a business loan rather than a loan secured by commercial property, start with our business loan refinance guide instead.

Every cost named in the switch column is itemised in our guide to commercial loan refinancing costs, including what is not usually payable.

How do you negotiate a better rate with your current bank?

The conversation succeeds or fails on what you bring. A vague request invites a token response; a specific, evidenced request forces a real retention decision.

1. Assemble a competing assessment. Find out what other lenders would actually offer your deal, not what a comparison site advertises. A genuine assessment of your file across a panel of lenders is the one document a bank cannot wave away, and it is the work a broker does before the conversation starts.
2. Lead with your repayment history. A clean run of repayments is your strongest card: it proves the bank holds a performing loan it would rather not lose.
3. Bring the valuation context. If your property has likely risen in value since the loan was written, your real loan to value position may be stronger than the bank’s file reflects, and stronger security supports sharper pricing. Recent comparable sales or a rental uplift are enough to frame the point.
4. Make a specific ask. Name the gap: what the market would price this loan at, and what it would take to keep it. Give the bank a reasonable window and be prepared to move, because a bluff the bank can sense is no leverage.

A banker can usually move the margin, sometimes waive ongoing fees, and occasionally tweak the facility inside policy. What no banker can move is credit policy itself: appetite for your industry, product design and lending limits sit above the retention desk. If your problem lives there, repricing cannot fix it, and the file the bank would want looks a lot like what a new lender would ask for.

Everstone’s founders, Ahmed Lotfi and Zappelin Heng, are former bankers who sat on the other side of these conversations for years. The pattern was consistent: files that arrived with evidence and a specific number were escalated and priced, while complaints got a scripted gesture. That is why the competing assessment comes first.

Why would your bank reprice your loan just because you asked?

Retention economics are not sentimental, they are arithmetic. When a performing loan walks out the door, the bank loses the income stream and then pays to replace it: winning a new customer, assessing a new file, carrying the risk the new loan behaves worse. Accepting a thinner margin on a loan it already knows is the quieter, cheaper decision, which is why retention teams exist.

The corollary is that pricing attention flows to customers who ask. No lender is obliged to volunteer its sharpest pricing to a quiet customer; the discounting energy goes to new business while the existing book drifts. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Home Loan Price Inquiry final report examined the impediments that stop borrowers switching lenders. The inquiry was residential, but the same inertia is familiar in commercial lending.

Published Reserve Bank of Australia lending rates statistics show where business lending rates sit in aggregate, but commercial pricing is set deal by deal, so what matters is what lenders would offer your specific file.

When does switching lenders beat repricing?

Repricing has a ceiling: your bank’s own book. A retention offer can only ever be one lender’s best, and commercial lenders differ sharply on the same deal. One leans into industrial property, another is cautious on retail, a third stretches further for a strong owner-occupier, and a non-bank may be the only home for a file the majors decline. If your deal sits with the wrong bank, no negotiation closes the gap, because the gap is appetite, not attitude.

Switching is also the answer when the problem is structural rather than price: a bank that will not extend the equity release you need, will not accommodate the term or split you want, or has quietly cooled on your industry. Releasing capital against the property has its own mechanics, covered in our commercial property equity release guide, and whole-of-market structuring can surface outcomes a single lender never offers, like the not-for-profit purchase we structured in our commercial property loans guide.

That easing matters here, because the classic reason owners accepted a mediocre retention offer was the assumed weight of moving. A lower paperwork barrier makes your negotiation more credible and the fallback less painful. The full switch, from document checklist to settlement, is laid out step by step in our commercial refinance process guide.

The honest caveat: switching triggers real costs (discharge, registration, valuation and possibly break fees on a fixed rate), and the saving must clear them. A reprice that lands close to the market can be the better outcome, capturing most of the benefit at none of the cost. The comparison must run both ways, which is what a broker is for.

Which signals say reprice, and which say switch?

Signals you should reprice first

• The rate has drifted but the loan otherwise fits. Structure, limits and the relationship still work; only the price is stale.
• Your repayment history is clean. A well-conducted loan is the one a retention team fights to keep; your leverage is at its peak.
• You are on a fixed rate with real break costs. Ask your lender for the payout figure before anyone talks you into moving; repricing may be the only free move right now.
• You have not asked in years. If the loan has never been repriced, the first conversation is the cheapest experiment in commercial finance.

Signals you should switch

• The bank offered a token cut, or nothing. A retention offer that leaves a wide gap to the market is a priced decision; treat it as your answer.
• You need something the bank will not do. More equity release capacity, a different term or structure, or flexibility the current product cannot deliver.
• The bank’s appetite has cooled on your asset class or industry. Appetite is policy, and no negotiation changes policy.
• Your loan is on the smaller side with a clean year of conduct. The streamlined pathway described above can lower the switching effort considerably. Offers change and criteria apply.
• The problems go beyond price. Slow decisions, unworkable conditions or a relationship manager carousel are costs a reprice cannot fix.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between repricing and refinancing a commercial loan?

Repricing means asking your current lender for a better rate on the loan you already have: no new loan, no discharge, usually no new paperwork. Refinancing means replacing the loan, either restructured with the same bank or written by a new lender. Repricing changes the price; refinancing can change the price, the structure and the lender.

Does asking my bank to reprice my commercial loan affect my credit file?

A simple reprice usually does not involve a new credit application, so it does not typically add an enquiry to your credit file. A refinance, whether with the same bank or a new lender, generally involves an application, and credit applications are recorded on your report. Policies vary, so confirm how your request will be treated before anything is lodged.

Can my bank refuse to reprice my commercial loan?

Yes. Repricing is discretionary, and a lender is under no obligation to sharpen a rate for an existing customer. Refusals are more likely when the loan sits outside the bank’s appetite, when conduct has been patchy, or when the request arrives without evidence. A refusal is useful information in itself, because it tells you the gap can only be closed by moving.

Do I need a new valuation to switch commercial lenders?

Usually, yes. An incoming lender typically orders its own valuation, because that valuation sets the loan to value ratio the offer is priced on. A simple reprice with your current bank usually does not require one. Whether a restructure with the same bank needs a fresh valuation depends on what is changing.

Does switching lenders restart my commercial loan term?

Not automatically. The term of the new loan is set when the new loan is written, so you can match your remaining term, shorten it or extend it. Extending the term lowers the repayment but usually increases the total interest paid over the life of the loan, so treat a longer term as a deliberate choice.

Is it worth switching commercial lenders for a small rate difference?

Sometimes. On a commercial balance even a modest rate difference can be meaningful money, but switching triggers real costs, so the saving has to clear them. The honest test is break-even: tally the switching costs against the monthly saving and see how long the refinance takes to pay for itself. If the gap is small, a reprice with your current bank often captures most of the benefit at no cost.

The honest summary

The order of operations is the whole answer. Ask your current bank to reprice first, because it costs nothing and takes one conversation, and walk in with a competing assessment rather than a complaint. Hold the result against what the wider market would offer the same deal. If the bank closes the gap, you have fixed the loan without touching it. If the gap stays wide, if the answer is no, or if the loan no longer fits the business, switching is not disloyalty, it is arithmetic. Everstone runs both sides of that comparison and tells you honestly which one your file supports.