With over 30 years in the business, James Green knows how to clinch a deal. Now he's built a company named for it
HAVING BUILT his career for more than three decades, it's safe to say that James Green has seen it all. He started as a mortgage broker in 1993, back when brokers were a rounding error in the Australian home loan market. He was one of the first handful of employees at Wizard Home Loans in 1996. He built businesses through the GFC, the Hayne Royal Commission and the digital lending boom.
Now, as chief executive of Clinch, Green is applying three decades of pattern recognition to a booming corner of the mortgage finance industry: bridging loans and equity release.
Green's career reads like a timeline of the broking industry itself. While at Wizard Home Loans, he worked alongside Mark Bouris to build a seven-person startup into a 300-office national brand.
He moved through Allco, Oxygen Home Loans, Century 21 Home Loans, Shore Financial, Australian Mortgage and Volt Bank, picking up an Australian Mortgage Award and a seat on the federal government's best interests duty advisory team along the way.
Asked what single event most shaped the profession he's been part of for three decades plus change, Green doesn't point to the usual suspects of regulation or technology, but something far more precise.
"For me, the single biggest event that shaped the mortgage broking profession was the introduction of lender-paid broker commissions," he says. "I still remember when State Bank introduced one of the first broker commissions, paying approximately $500 for a settled loan in 1996." That decision, he argues, gave brokers the economic foundation to build real businesses rather than simply completing one-off transactions – and opened national distribution to smaller lenders that couldn't otherwise compete with the majors.
The GFC of 2007–08 was the other hinge point. "We saw many lenders withdraw from the market almost overnight, funding models change dramatically, and the mortgage landscape was reshaped permanently," Green recalls. He also lived through the aftermath of the Hayne Royal Commission, later joining the Commonwealth financial services minister's advisory team as the industry worked to retain the broker commission model.
While he's been there from the beginning, brokers' rise to dominance of the mortgage finance market still impresses Green. "When I started, brokers had less than 5% market share, and customers largely went wherever their bank told them to go," he says. "Thirty years later, brokers represent around 80% of new lending because consumers voted with their feet; they wanted choice, competition and advice."
Building Clinch
With an enviable CV behind him, Green brought Clinch to the equity release market in 2025, targeting a gap he saw forming: "Customers increasingly needed more flexibility when buying and selling property," he says, "particularly in a market where timing, settlement pressures and lifestyle decisions don't always line up."
Clinch's flagship bridging product, the Easy Equity Loan, lets customers draw down equity without monthly repayments – a response, Green says, to a growing cohort who are "asset rich but income constrained".
Settling close to half a billion dollars in the first financial year is "a milestone we are incredibly proud of, but more importantly it validates that Australians are looking for more flexible lending solutions that support the way they want to make property decisions".
"Great businesses are built by great, empowered people. We've been fortunate to combine an amazing team with a great brand, innovative products [and] deep broker relationships"
Green is eager to credit the platform behind the brand: AltX Financial Group's funding capability and distribution network, alongside a team comprising "deep specialist lending experience, strong broker relationships and a genuine focus on delivering better customer outcomes".
Part of what's made bridging finance suddenly fashionable, in Green's view, is pricing. "Historically, bridging loans were seen as expensive and niche, often with rates above 15%," he says. "Today, through better funding, competition and technology, products like Clinch can provide flexible solutions at rates closer to traditional lending" – or nearer to 8%.
That shift has turned bridging from a last resort into a genuine financial solution – one increasingly attractive to the fast-growing downsizer segment reshaping broker business models around later-life clients.
What Green brought back from the UK
Much of Clinch's product design traces back to a single research trip. In January 2025, Green travelled to the UK to spend time understanding how its specialist lending market had evolved, particularly around downsizers and later-life borrowers.
Later-life lending has become one of the UK's fastest-growing mortgage segments. Volumes of new loans to borrowers over 55 rose 33.5% year-on-year to £6.1 billion ($12 billion) in the first quarter of 2025, according to UK Finance's later-life lending data – and Green had seen the same pressures building in Australia's ageing, property-wealthy population.
"The key insight I brought back from the UK was that the future of bridging finance was not just about solving a short-term settlement problem," he says. "It was about creating lending solutions that helped customers navigate major life transitions."
"After 30 years in lending, the one thing I know is that industries don't stand still"
That thinking shaped Easy Equity directly, giving Australian homeowners a way to access built-up equity without the burden of monthly repayments. As Green puts it, "The UK gave us a window into where the market was heading, but the opportunity was to take those learnings and design products specifically for Australian customers, brokers and our property market."
Where to next?
With AI and demographic change now converging on the industry, Green sees Clinch's next phase as an extension of the same pattern that's defined his career – spotting where customer needs have outgrown the products built to serve them and building something better before the rest of the market catches up.
"Great businesses are built by great, empowered people," he says. "We've been fortunate to combine an amazing team with a great brand, innovative products, deep broker relationships and the strength of the AltX platform." That funding capability is what lets Clinch keep building solutions that are "competitive, sustainable and designed around customer needs".
That team is now pointed at a clear target. "Our focus now is on continuing to build Australia's leading specialist bridging and property finance platform," Green says. They are keeping the downsizer and later-life borrower segment front of mind, alongside further investment in AI and technology to "simplify the lending experience for brokers and customers" without losing the human-centric advice Green sees as essential for the biggest financial calls of a customer's life.
His confidence that Clinch can pull it off is rooted in a career built on backing himself through change. "After 30 years in lending, the one thing I know is that industries don't stand still," he says. "The companies that succeed are the ones that embrace change, challenge the status quo and stay focused on solving customer problems."
Green views Clinch's first 12 months as groundwork rather than a finished product. "The first year was about building the foundation: the right people, the right culture, a trusted brand, innovative products and strong funding partnerships. The next chapter is about scaling with the same energy, innovation and customer focus that got us here."
Clinch's early growth so far suggests there's abundant room to run in the bridging and equity release markets. For Green, that's less a prediction than a pattern he's watched play out since 1996: brokers, products and lenders reshaping themselves around what customers actually need, rather than the other way around.
