Australia’s top brokers revealed!

The winners for each of the 31 categories were announced at a five-star awards luncheon on Friday, 29 June, at The Star in Sydney. 

More than 600 industry professionals attended the event to find out who is leading the way in the Australian mortgage market.

Industry heavyweight Justin Doobov of Intelligent Finance took home the award for Finance Broker of the Year while leading broker Josh Bartlett of Loan Market Bayside was named Residential Broker of the Year. 

Meanwhile, another Loan Market broker, Bernard Desmond, who has been featured on The Adviser’s Elite Broker podcast, was named Broker of the Year. 

Mr Desmond also took home the individual award for Customer Service of the Year (Metropolitan) while Samuel Arthurs, who operates in Warrnambool, Victoria, took home the same award in the regional category.

Meanwhile, Regional Broker of the Year was won by Lismore-based broker George Smith-Roberts of realestate.com.au Home Loans.

Louisa Sanghera of Zippy Financial was honoured as Rising Star while Ditte Westbury (Viking Mortgages) and Michael Vasilaras (Loan Market Bayside) were named as Newcomers of the Year (Regional and Metropolitan). 

Commercial Broker of the Year went to Stanley Finance’s Bertie Stanley while Jason Gibson was named Asset Finance Broker of the Year. 

Outside of the broking categories, FAST’s Rob Ryan was recognised as the Industry Thought Leader of the Year and Tracie Palmer of Cornerstone Mentoring was named Mentor of the Year. 

Multiple awards went to aggregation group Connective, who took home the awards for Aggregator of the Year and Technology Platform of the Year.

Two Aussie offices were recognised for leading the way through the Office of the Year – Franchise award, which went to Aussie Prospect, and the Customer Service of the Year – Office (5 or less brokers) award, which went to the Neutral Bay office.

Aussie also won Marketing Campaign of the Year. 

Momentum Media’s managing editor of mortgages, James Mitchell, congratulated this year’s winners and noted that the competition between categories this year had been tighter than ever. 

“The Australian Broking Awards showcases the high level of excellence in the broking industry, and competition was rife this year.

“The quality of the submissions this year was a testament to the increasing professionalism in this industry and demonstrates just how strong this industry, and the great service it provides, has become.

“We are proud to honour the leading players in Australia’s broking industry and congratulations must go to all the winners and finalists who have worked so hard to ensure that brokers are the channel of choice for Australian borrowers.”

A full list of this year’s winners can be found here.