As demographic shifts, rising complexity, and evolving income trends reshape the lending landscape, brokers have a powerful opportunity to step up. We sit down with Ryan Harkness, co-founder and COO of ORDE Financial, about why non-bank lenders are becoming critical partners in helping brokers support self-employed Australians, complex borrowers, and the next wave of upsizers.
Q: ORDE was founded in 2019. What gap were you trying to fill in the market?
Through the mid 2010s, APRA stepped in with some macro prudential regulation and the non bank industry blew up. It grew fivefold in that time… but whilst they were growing fivefold, what we saw in the market was that brokers were being left behind.
Brokers had gone from being delivered great service but were then being under-serviced by the non-banks. So, we saw it as a great opportunity to bring back to brokers a lender solely focused on them.
‘We're built for broker’ was our original slogan… And one of the things that I think is different with ORDE is we equally share the passion of brokers. We love what brokers do for everyday Australians… So we don't just say the words, they actually have meaning and they turn to outcomes and actions.
If we can form part of that complex scenario and help brokers deliver a solution, we're helping brokers build their business.
Q: Who is ORDE’s core customer?
We're here to help anyone that the banks won't, can't or find ‘too hard’. But, predominantly we're here to support self-employed Australians.
If they're looking to get a mortgage, we hope to help them. Whether it's residential, commercial, SMSF, short-term bridging (which is going to become a really big product over the coming years), residential construction, development finance… You name it, we hope we can help.
For example, we had one customer - Karen - who we helped and actually met! We did an executive off-site in King Valley, hopped on to a winery tour and the bus driver, Karen, was an ORDE customer. She told us she'd been through bushfires that really damaged the local area and her business. Karen, like most Australians, pivoted, found a way to find income and continue working and helping her local community. But unfortunately, that wasn't enough for banks. Continuing to show income through a tough period wasn't what they wanted to see. Whereas, with ORDE, we were able to find the solution as we saw the end outcome. Three years on, Karen is back to doing what she loved, continuing to meet her home loan and continuing to give back to the community - all whilst making sure we got to go to the top wineries around the King Valley!
Q: Where does your funding come from, given you’re not deposit funded?
I would say we're one of the most well-backed and wel-funded non-banks in Australia. We now have $5 billion of assets under management and we have capacity for $7 billion. We work with four of the five major Australian banks, two of the offshore banks and we also run a very public RMBS program.
In 2024, we issued the largest inaugural RMBS issuance of $1 billion, which had never been done. It was double the size of the previous record. In 2025 we did our second RMBS issuance, which equally was a significant RMBS transaction because we had 37 investors support the transaction.
Q: You’ve launched new research this year – Outlook Australia - for brokers and their clients. What are you aiming to uncover?
The best decisions are backed by thorough research. We thought it was pretty important as we grew to start sharing our ability to obtain research and share that with brokers. We led some surveys in 2025 that showed us that brokers see their role as helping to build their client's future. We really loved that messaging. So we wanted to come to market and help them think about how to build their future. We undertook some work with Bernard Salt, a well-respected demographer and social commentator, to forecast what the next 10 years look like. We're referring to it as Outlook Australia and we undertook a national broker road show at the endof February to showcase the findings with brokers.
Q: When you look at the demographic shifts in the research, what will matter most for brokers?
The most important theme is probably population growth and changing demographics… There are 7 million Millennials moving into their 40s… a lot of those first home buyers now are going to be thinking about families and thinking about moving into their forever home. And that's going to create an amazing opportunity for brokers.
We're also going to see a continued focus on occupations that are going to create further uncertainties and complexities around income, which is where nonbanks are here to help…Home lending is going to continue being complex. So brokers have an amazing opportunity to play a role in finding solutions by working with their customers.
Tune in to hear more!
You can find out more from Ryan Harkness and how ORDE Financial is supporting the self-employed in the In Focus podcast here:
Click here to listen on your device
