Brokers must guard against complacency and ensure they’re providing true credit advice to ensure the industry holds onto its record market share, senior industry leaders have warned.
On Wednesday (22 July), four industry leaders unpacked their vision for the future of the mortgage and finance broking industry and what challenges and opportunities are on the horizon for the industry.
Speaking at the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia’s (MFAA) National Conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, the panel discussion on the future of broking leaned into the conference theme of ‘Build on Trust, Ready for Tomorrow’ and featured:
- Anja Pannek: MFAA CEO (providing an association perspective)
- Steven Bourne: The Lending Association CEO (providing a broker perspective)
- Wendy Brown: Macquarie Bank head of broker sales (providing a lender perspective)
- Lauren van den Berg: Mortgage Professionals Canada CEO (providing an international perspective).
The panel explored how rising consumer expectations, rapid technological acceleration, business model pressures, and changing regulatory environments are redefining the role of the broker.
Anja Pannek, MFAA CEO, highlighted that while technology and artificial intelligence (AI) are rapidly transforming financial services, the core value of broking remains distinctly human.
She stressed that despite tech advancements and AI “undoubtedly reshaping the industry”, complexity continues to drive consumers toward trusted professionals.
“There’s a famous line in our industry that ‘Complexity is a broker’s friend,” Pannek said.
“I think what we’ve seen over the last few years is that whether the economy is thriving and booming… do you know what people want? They want a hand. They want someone they can trust. They want someone to help navigate them through it… Australians are not choosing how to get finance. What they are actually choosing is they’re choosing help, judgement, and they’re choosing someone that they can trust.”
When asked about the greatest risk facing the sector, particularly given audience polling indicating widespread concern around AI, Pannek cautioned against standing still.
“Trust is actually the very foundation upon which this industry is built. But I think for where we are in the world right now and how quickly it is changing around us, there’s a question that we need to pose, and that is how do we carry the trust that we have in this industry forward in the world that we’re in and the world we’ll be in tomorrow,” she said.
“We’re doing a massive piece of work at the moment around what the future of broking will look like, and we see brokers from a centre of trust, which is very strong in this industry. They are life partners and advisers to clients from very early in the property buying journey and all the way through. They have many interactions in a client’s life where brokers provide advice.”
However, she warned that the biggest risk to broker industry dominance is “standing still” and “resting on our laurels”.
“As information becomes easier to access and faster, the human parts of broking are going to become more visible and more valuable. Empathy, reassurance, judgement as well,” Pannek said.
“Trust in this industry is built when clients feel well understood and feel well supported and they have confidence off the back of that conversation. I think it’s actually that simple. So we need to keep coming back to that and be very proud that, as an industry, that is how the value is created. We need to be shouting it.
“But protecting trust... is critically about the quality of the advice and the support that you give, and it’s about the systems and processes that sit around you... trust is hard won, but it can take one cyber attack to materially undo that.”
The evolution of the business model
From a broking business perspective, Steven Bourne, CEO of The Lending Association, noted that the modern consumer arrives far more educated than in previous years, shifting the broker’s role heavily toward holistic, life cycle advice.
“The consumer’s never been better informed when they arrive. So, what we were dealing with five years ago, or maybe even two or three years ago, I think is very different to when consumers come in the front door,” Bourne said.
“I believe that our brokers have got to be better skilled, and they’ve got to be ready to push back... a client will come in and will have done their research and they go, ’I know what I want. I’ve got the rate. I’ve got the lender,’ but they actually don’t understand the nuances of what happens with the policy or the lender or the process.”
Bourne added that executing the loan transaction is no longer the bulk of the value proposition.
“Just getting the transaction done is no longer enough. That was enough 10 years ago... I actually think that those days are gone. Being a broker now is only 20 per cent getting them through the transaction. But 80 per cent sits before the transaction (getting them mortgage ready) or after the transaction (post-settlement),” Bourne said.
He noted that as credit advice becomes more specialised and time-consuming, brokers will likely need to bed deeper into a speciality and grow their back-office support staff.
Wendy Brown, head of broker sales at Macquarie Bank, agreed that broker models were changing, with many now having parabrokers and loan administrators who work on files with brokers – rather than one person writing the loan from start to finish.
She flagged that more lenders needed to be able to work with “multi-person operations” by giving support staff access to loan files.
Brown also warned against the broking industry becoming complacent with its success.
“Brokers are advocates to ensure the clients get the best outcome. And they’re interpreters… interpreting a need to turn it into an outcome. But the big thing with broker market share, is that it’s ours to lose. I’ve been in the industry for a very long time – since it was 7 per cent of the market share – so we’ve come on that journey together. But it’s ours to lose… we need to keep that consistency of relationship, advocacy, and interpretation to keep that 81 per cent,” Brown said.
International lessons: the Canadian experience
Offering an international perspective, Lauren van den Berg, CEO of Mortgage Professionals Canada, highlighted the structural differences and shared challenges between the Canadian and Australian mortgage markets.
While Canada operates with a lower broker market share – around 35 per cent – and under varied provincial regulations, van den Berg explained that their channel positioning centres firmly on professional advice.
“We are a small but mighty industry in Canada. We are looking at about 35-ish per cent market share,” van den Berg said.
“Our entire marketing campaign intended to demystify the broker channel in Canada… is based around the concept of come to a broker because they are the trusted expert to give you the advice as a Canadian home owner looking to make what is in many cases the most expensive financial purchase of their lives.”
Van den Berg emphasised that raising professional standards and pursuing ongoing professional development would be critical for brokers seeking to differentiate themselves in a rapidly shifting environment.
“An individual who signs up to do a designation program, to get a certification... is someone who is committed to lifelong learning. It is someone who is committed to personal accountability. It is someone who is committed to going above and beyond whatever the minimum required standards set by the regulator are,” van den Berg said.
She said that standing still risks leaving client relationships behind: “Standing still is no longer an option. And if you don’t, you look around this room, the person next to you will, and you do yourself, you do your business, you do your teams a disservice if you leave them behind.”
[Related: ASIC to release best interests duty report by Q4]
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