Australia's largest mortgage brokerages face a harder question than how many loans they can write: whether they can keep clients close for decades. The Brokerage of the Year (Over 20 Staff) category at the 2026 Australian Mortgage Awards, sponsored by CommBank, rewards the firms building businesses that can do so sustainably, at scale and over years. Across seven businesses, one pattern is consistent. Specialisation, culture and long-term client engagement separate the leaders from those simply writing more volume. CommBank's sponsorship of the category reflects where the most consequential growth questions in Australian mortgage broking now sit.
The category assesses settled loan volume across two financial years, client retention rates, application-to-settlement conversion rates, lead generation strategies, broker training investment and each firm's value proposition to brokers and key stakeholders. CommBank sponsors the category because scale carries consequences that reach beyond individual businesses. Baber Zaka, general manager of third-party banking at CommBank, said larger brokerages carry unusual responsibility within the channel. 'Larger brokerages in our industry play such a vital and important role in the strength and evolution of the broking industry. These brokerages bring together people, expertise and experience that really helps drive the channel forward,' said Zaka. CommBank holds accreditation with more than 15,000 brokers across Australia.
Rachael Howlett, finance strategist team leader at Infinity Group Australia, said the real opportunity lies beyond volume. 'You can acquire a loan book without acquiring the loyalty behind those clients. The real opportunity is increasing client retention, engagement, referrals and lifetime value,' said Howlett. Her business works to help clients pay down their home loan within a decade, backed by monthly relationship manager contact. 'Settlement should not be the end of a relationship with a client. It should almost be the beginning. A client's financial position is constantly changing, and so is the market and the economy,' said Howlett. That long-term view shapes how her firm defines the broker's role. Todd O'Reilly, CEO and founding partner of MedX Finance, said his business has never treated client relationships as one-off transactions. 'A lot of our brokers around the country have had 15-, 20-, 25-year relationships in some cases with their clients, and they have just followed them from lender to lender over the years. It has never really been one and done for us,' said O'Reilly.
Technology strips administrative load from brokers. It does not replace conversation. Hung Chuy, founder and director of Strategic Brokers, said his business uses artificial intelligence to free brokers up for client time. 'We are obviously ingraining AI into our business, doing things to systemise and automate as much as we can to give the brokers the opportunity to spend more time with their clients,' said Chuy. After 15 years in finance without spending a dollar on paid marketing, Chuy said the moment that cements a client relationship is often the simplest. 'Sometimes, it comes down to a simple phone call. That simple five-, 10-, 20-minute phone call essentially makes a world of difference,' said Chuy.
Specialisation builds a client base that broad-market competition rarely matches. Damian Brander, managing director of the Australian Lending and Investment Centre (ALIC), has focused on investment lending strategy across 17 years and built a base of more than 36,000 clients through offices in Manila, Malaysia and Nepal. 'We've always prided ourselves on being quite the subject matter expert in terms of investment lending structures and strategies. That has been the backbone of our business,' said Brander. That focus produces unusual loyalty. 'Eighty per cent of all our business comes from an existing customer or a referral from an existing customer, particularly at a time when the investment landscape has been thrown up in the air by recent federal budget and tax law changes,' said Brander.
Consolidation is already under way. Redom Syed, co-founder and managing director of Flint Group, has built a business designed to give smaller operators a platform. 'The mortgage market is changing quite rapidly over the next few years and consolidation is happening in the industry. We want to give brokers who are operating in silos or [have] small operations an opportunity to be part of a community that provides the backbone for them to level up,' said Syed. Flint built a 70-plus person office in Nepal over 18 months. Syed's growth plan combines mergers and acquisitions with broker recruitment, built around fewer, better people rather than simply more of them. Analysis of the wider market appears in MPA's premium broker reports.
Culture is the variable technology cannot set. Jake Ziegler, head of investment lending at Freedom Investment Lending, said his firm has invested heavily in systems and offshore workflows but remains wary of relying on them alone. 'Systems are not going to take us that far, so culture is really one of the most important parts we are focusing on this year. We have a clear expectation across the business that you leave your ego at the door and put your hand up when you need help,' said Ziegler. Tom Hawley, co-founder and director of Azura Financial, holds a comparable view. 'The future broker becomes less of a loan facilitator and much more of a long-term financial strategist around debt and property,' said Howlett of Infinity Group, framing the wider shift.
CommBank, Australia's largest home lender with more than 110 years serving Australian customers, sponsors the Brokerage of the Year (Over 20 Staff) category because scale carries industry-wide consequences. Zaka said investment at the enterprise level shapes where the whole channel is heading. 'The greater investment in technology, innovation and processes that are enabled by having such a large enterprise really shapes the future of where we can go as an industry,' said Zaka. CommBank provides dedicated relationship managers, broker support specialists and a 24/7 training hub for its 15,000-plus accredited brokers nationwide. Share this analysis on Facebook or Twitter.