As MPA turns 25, the brokers, lenders and aggregators who shaped the industry's remarkable rise share their stories
BEFORE MORTGAGE broking existed in Australia, the banking system Peter White (pictured, right) entered as a young man barely resembled the industry we recognise today.
Australian banking operated under strict government-imposed interest rate ceilings and lending controls, which meant credit itself was rationed rather than competed for.
Getting a mortgage wasn't a matter of shopping around for the best deal, because there was effectively nowhere else to shop – you queued at your local branch and hoped the all-powerful branch manager, who held enormous personal discretion over who did and didn't get a loan, thought well of you.
There was widespread acceptance in the community that bank credit was difficult to come by, for all but the safest borrowers.
Even as the banking sector began to open up to foreign competition through the '80s, home loans were processed on paper ledgers, passbooks recorded savings by hand, and a customer's entire financial history often lived in a single manila folder inside a filing cabinet at their nearest branch.
"The bank was very much a dictatorship," White, now the outgoing chief executive of the FBAA, recalls of his start nearly 48 years ago. "You know, do as I say, and if you want this loan, then dance to this tune."
But things began to change in the early-to-mid 1990s, when banks decided to cut costs by shutting branches across the country.
"All of a sudden, this little sector called mortgage broking stepped up and said, 'We'll fill the gap'" — Peter White, FBAA
"All of a sudden, this little sector called mortgage broking stepped up and said, 'We'll fill the gap,'" White says. As the industry steadily grew in size and legitimacy, more brokers piled into the field, lured by a handsome commission structure that rewarded putting clients' best interests first.
While most of these trailblazing brokers were consummate professionals, unfortunately the space also attracted a few "cowboys" – bad actors hunting for "the weakest link in the chain" across a patchwork of state rules. That reputation, and the negative press it generated, forced the industry to get its ship in order.
What became the National Consumer Credit Protection Act started life aimed squarely at brokers alone. White was among a handful who pushed back, arguing lenders needed to answer to the same rules. "That's not fair," White told Treasury. "It's got to encompass the lenders as well."
When the measure is considered alongside the best interests duty introduced a decade and a half later, White is unequivocal about what it did for the industry. "Those were the best things that happened to the industry. Tidied the loose ends up, got rid of some cowboys, put better frameworks around things – and our market share just continued to grow and grow and grow. You can't say it was bad."
Fast forward to 2026 and brokers now write more than 80% of new residential home loans in Australia today, up from a single-digit share when White first watched the industry take shape.
That number alone says more than a thousand words can, although for Anja Pannek (pictured, left), chief executive of the MFAA, the story of the past 25 years isn't just about a number.
"Mortgage broking has gone from a challenger distribution channel to a critical part of how Australians access financial services – and it has fundamentally reshaped the lending market in the process," she says. "We went from an institutional-led market to a consumer choice-led market. That's a profound shift."
Australia now has what Pannek describes as probably one of the most digitised home lending ecosystems globally – brokers went from faxing paper applications to operating on platforms that process loans at scale. Yet the more remarkable thing, she argues, is that in a world of more information and faster technology, consumers still overwhelmingly choose to work with a broker.
Pannek points to the Hayne Royal Commission as the industry's toughest test – and, in hindsight, its proudest vindication. "I remember receiving the first version of that report," she says, "and it was just all of us staring into the risk that broker remuneration would fundamentally change." The lens of the original recommendations – improving consumer protections – was welcome, but the proposed mechanism threatened to gut competition across the entire lending market.
Rather than retreating, the industry pushed back with evidence, not sentiment, through campaigns like "Broker Behind You" and "Don't Kill Competition." The argument, as Pannek frames it, was never about dodging scrutiny. "It was about ensuring competition remained in the market."
"Mortgage broking has gone from a challenger distribution channel to a critical part of how Australians access financial services – and it has fundamentally reshaped the lending market in the process" — Anja Pannek, MFAA
Most of the Royal Commission's reforms were voluntarily adopted by the industry itself before they were even legislated. The BID that followed didn't feel like an imposition to brokers already doing the job properly – it felt like recognition.
"Mortgage brokers have believed for a very long time they already act in the client's best interests," Pannek says. "In many ways it felt like a codification of what was already in the DNA of the industry."
What it also did was clarify something that had always been true but rarely stated so starkly: only a mortgage broker can act in their client's best interests. No lender can.
"For a broker to be able to say, 'I'm bound by law to act in your best interests' – that's an incredibly powerful thing to offer a client," she says. It's also why roughly three-quarters of brokers now get new business through referrals from existing clients, family or friends – proof that trust, once earned the hard way, compounds.
As MPA celebrates its 25th year in circulation with a retrospective on the Australian mortgage broking industry, it's evident that the relationships that govern it have matured well beyond their cowboy-era beginnings.
What began as reluctant coexistence between broker and bank has settled into genuine interdependence – banks investing in BDMs and broker portals, brokers operating under regulatory guardrails that let lenders hand over origination at scale with confidence. Neither side can really do without the other anymore.
For Pannek, the road ahead runs through the same principle that got the industry here. "Trust is the absolute foundation of our industry," she says. "Everything we do to move the industry forward has to be looked at through that lens. We have more information than ever, home lending is highly digitised, yet we see more people wanting to work with brokers.
"Because this industry isn't about a transaction. It's about empathy, understanding, guidance – the value created through human interaction."
Stay tuned to MPA over the coming days as we share fascinating stories from the biggest players in the industry.
