00:01 - [music] Hello and welcome to the 2026 Brokerage of the year 20 plus staff roundtable ahead of this year's Australian mortgage awards. I'm delighted to welcome seven representatives from this year's excellence awardees who are all vying for this coveted Commonwealth Bank sponsored gong. Joining us to discuss today are Hung Chuy from Strategic Brokers, Redom Syed from Flint Group, Todd O'Reilly from MedX Financial, Racheal Howlett from Infinity Group, Damen Brander from the Australian Lending and
00:38 - Investment Center, Jake Ziegler from Freedom Investment Lending, Tom Hawley from Azura Financial, and last and certainly not least, Mr. Baber Zaka, Commonwealth Bank's general manager, third party lending, who is here to kick things off. Baber, it's great to see you. >> I'm uh really happy to be here to talk to this group of people as brokerages uh with 20 plus staff, larger brokerages in our industry play such a vital and important role in the strength and evolution of the broking industry. These
01:12 - uh brokerages bring together people, expertise and experience that really helps drive the channel forward. Uh the in greater investment in technology, innovation and processes that are enabled by having such a large enterprise really shaped the future of where we can go as an industry because continued investment is always required and continued growth is always required to really make that next step and to really drive us forward. Uh growth also brings responsibility maintaining a strong culture and really developing the
01:47 - future of the way that we are all going to work together as an industry and these brokerages are pivotal partners for lenders and aggregators in driving great customer outcomes. CommBank is really proud to support brokerages that continue to invest in the channel uh and together we can grow this channel. Congratulations to this year's finalists and thank you for your contribution to the industry. >> Thank you very much, Baber. Well, hello everybody. Thank you again for joining us. As AMA excellence awardees,
02:19 - you're among the largest and most successful broking businesses in the country. As the industry matures, what will be key to growing your brokerages to the next level? Is it M&A, diversification, pure volume growth, or something else entirely? How about we start with you, Hong? Oh, >> hey. Thanks for having me on. Um, basically in our business, we we're kind of like a family business. Most of the guys operate with us. They are friends, family or people that I know or known since when I was young. Um, our way of
02:51 - growing the business isn't essentially trying to acquire everything out there, take every lead on. Uh, we try to find a bit of a culture fit with the clients that come through with us. Um, and we do a lot of education with our clients. So, we spend a lot of time nurturing the clients that we have. And obviously when the new clients come on, we treat them like family and we think about them as lifetime clients rather than people who are just coming in for a transaction. Been doing this for quite some time. So
03:13 - this is my 15th year in finance. And um we've never spent a single cent on marketing. So we built our brand around good service, quality service, good education. And um for us, I think that's probably the key for our business to keep growing. >> Thank you so much. Um Redom, would you like to continue please? >> Sure. So at Flint, we view the mortgage market as changing quite rapidly over the next few years. Uh consolidation is happening in the industry and we want to provide a solution to the marketplace to
03:42 - allow mortgage brokers who are operating in silos or small little operations and opportunity to be in a community uh that provides the backbone for brokers to level up and focus in on what matters most, which is client relationships, lead acquisition, and client nurturing through the process. supported by a really strong engine room. That's why over the last 18 months, we've built out a pretty strong engine room in Nepal with a 70 plus person office. And now our approach to continue to grow is to
04:10 - bring in brokers who are looking to take on the next level all across the country and build out state offices across the grip. So that's our story so far. So it will be a mix of M&A, mix of acquisitions, but it's really tapping into the need for consolidation in our industry and for us to evolve into a way that uh really provides brokers the platform to achieve higher volumes. We see fewer better people in the future. >> Thank you so much. And um Todd, I'd love to hear from uh you at MedX Finance.
04:43 - >> Yeah, thanks Philly. Uh our uh model has been probably a little bit we're relatively new bro uh broking group. We've only been going for a couple of years. Probably says it in the name that we've probably been um sort of niche and focused in terms of the way we've actually built uh the business to date. Very focused on the medical space and just going as deep as possible there. That's attracted a lot of brokers relatively quickly um out of the banks
05:10 - uh who are ready to do it for themselves. I guess moving forward it's the medical market's fantastic but uh there does it is a relatively small market very insular market um so I guess our next step will probably be diversifying outside of medical into different niches where we can potentially replicate that model I think the other piece we're very big on cliche I know but uh the people and culture piece um so it's very much about just building the culture in the
05:41 - right way so that we can just continue to attract a broker's thoughts. >> All right. Now, I'd love to hear from you, Rachel. >> Thanks, Billy. Uh, for us here at Infinity, I think the next level of our growth is less about simply writing more loans and more about creating more value for every one of our client relationships. Pure volume growth will always matter, of course, and M&A can obviously accelerate that scale, but you can acquire a loan book without necessarily acquiring the loyalty behind
06:09 - those clients. So the real opportunity is increasing that client retention for us, the engagement, referrals, and just lifetime value. We see ourselves more than that transactional mortgage broker. We want to be involved in our clients broader financial journey from buying their first home, reducing their mortgage rapidly in under 10 years, building equity in those homes, purchasing investments, and creating wealth. I think technology and AI will also increasingly automate the transactional parts of broking. So I
06:38 - think the businesses that can grow the strongest will be those that can combine that technology and scale with something that technology can't easily replicate which is strategy, relationships and accountability. So question for us isn't just how many more loans can we write. It's about how much financial value can we create for each client over the next 10, 20, 30 years. How do we keep them engaged in a regular relationship with us? namely around our debt reduction and our budgeting model which we offer.
07:07 - Providing them with a relationship manager to engage with every month and that's how we can ensure that our clients can stay on track to pay off their home loans in under 10 years which is such a huge part of our business and why our clients love us so much. >> All right, thank you so much and now I'd love to hear from yourself Damian. >> So at ALIC we are really focused on providing specialized support to our clients. Um, we've always prided ourselves on being quite uh the subject
07:36 - matter expert in terms of investment lending structures and strategies. It's been the backbone of our business for the last 17 years as we've built up over 36,000 clients. As we've expanded across three um overseas uh centers of operation in Manila, Malaysia and Nepal, it's allowed our business to really hone our craft to create these additional brokers and to become a true trusted uh advisor to our client. Um we're very proud of the fact that 80% of all our business comes from an existing customer
08:09 - or a referral from an existing customer. So it really amplifies our position with investors. uh we see that there's a particular gap in the national broker marketplace for a strategic uh investment focused um brokerage house. You know, Australians have a love affair with property and to have that specialization at uh at core with the right people uh who aren't motivated by external referrals but purely centered on a motive free recommendation and advice pathway for investors particularly at a time where the
08:43 - investment landscape has just been thrown up in the air by recent federal budget uh and tax law changes. So I we believe that the need for you know strategic specialized and expert um support for Australian property investors is our key target market now but also in the future. >> All right thank you so much. Um stretching to yourself Jake at Freedom Investment Lending. Um what's your experience here? >> Thanks for having us on. Um I suppose yeah just for us here at Freedom I
09:12 - mean the next level for us is not trying to become something completely different from what we've done in the past. It's continue to grow our volume, but doing it sustainably and without compromising the client experience. Like Rachel said earlier, client experience has to remain as the key focus. So, you know, it doesn't mean just referring to each broker and asking them to write more loans, right? It has to start with people in the right roles having a clear structure all the way from top to
00:09:36 - bottom. So, um our brokers have always been and they will continue to be um there to not just complete one transaction and move on from the client. they're really there to manage them and their whole investment lending journey all the way through uh for the long term. So, you know, we're not just helping someone um secure their first investment, you know, we're really here thinking about the second, thinking about third, fourth, fifth. Um and you know, looking at it's not about just
10:00 - looking at the right lender structure. It's about understanding what decision are we making today that's going to affect what they're going to be able to do next. So at Freedom, we've really invested heavily into our systems, our workflows, reporting and support structures here in Australia and offshore. So purpose of that is really just to make sure that our people are spending less time working out what they should be doing and really focusing on the work that matters. So um it means
10:25 - more sitting down with clients, more developing strategies, more solving problems and really progressing on our highest priorities um every single day. So, uh, we all know that systems are not only going to take us too that that far, but so, um, culture is really one of the most important parts that we're focusing on this year here at Freedom. So, we have a really clear expectation across the business that we leave your ego at the door and really put your hand up when you need some help. And, uh, one, you
10:53 - know, for one person to solve a really complex scenario, we want that knowledge shared across the entire business as well. So for us, reaching the next level isn't about get is really just about getting better at what we already specialize in. And if we continue putting the right people um into the right structure, removing any of the unnecessary busy work um and protecting a lot of the collaborative culture within the business, uh we can really keep growing our volumes and w sacrificing a lot of the advice and
11:22 - experience that we're already providing. >> All right. And to round off the first question, uh can I please hear from you, Tom? I think for us, we're just going to continue doing what we've always done, and I think everyone's sort of touched on it, which is really focusing on customer outcomes and customer service. And I think if you if you focus on being a really good broker, having a high attention to detail, and a robust process, you know, growth sort of takes care of itself. um or you know so I
11:50 - guess what's sort of been successful for us in the past has been really f focusing on quality advice and good long-term relationships but also really investing in our human capital and our resources in our team and making sure we've got really good brokers that know exactly what they're doing and not just trying to grow for the sake of it and a sort of bums on seats approach. So we're very big at sort of you know sustain we're very big on sustainable growth not trying to grow too quickly
12:18 - but trying to make sure that we're constantly investing in our team and the growth will take care of itself. Um we bought a few books recently and we'll continue buying books. I think they make good value and I think there is a lot of consolidation coming in the market. I think a lot of people who have been broking for a long time and sort of look at the way it's going with a lot of the technological applications that are coming through um are going to look to exit and it's it is a lot harder these
12:41 - days to be a one-man show sort of broker you know out of your home or your service office. So as sort of you know Redom touched on to be part of a community and have a platform and a brand behind you is very valuable but yeah I don't know what's good question not sure we really know where our growth comes from but I'm pretty keen to just keep trucking along as we are keep doing the important things well and uh the growth takes care of itself. >> Thank you Tom and take a deep breath
13:09 - because I'm going to stick with you uh on question two days of one and done deals are behind us. How are you ingraining yourselves in your client's long-term home ownership journey? And what has been the greatest challenges in meeting clients increasingly sophisticated demands? Take it away, Tom. >> Yeah, I think really now the way that the technology is sort of commoditizing the administrational size and even somewhat the credit uh sort of analysis and assessment side of giving lending
13:42 - advice. It's really opened up the, you know, doorway to be able to spend more time on what rap matters, which is your client relationship and understanding what your client's needs and objectives are and what their long-term um what their long-term goals are. So, I guess what we're trying to do is give more time back to the relationship manager, which is the broker, and have more touch points with the clients, you know, ask deeper questions, less time on administration and processing, um, and
14:12 - more time on, as you said, like sort of investing in those long-term relationships. So, it's a bit of a tough one because, you know, we're not really financial advisers, brokers, are you? You know, so you're not you sort of got to be careful. We don't have a financial advice arm. I know a lot of the other brokerages to do. Um, but we're here to provide options and make sure that you have, you know, a great sort of lending partner for the long term that's going to ensure that you've
14:40 - asked every possible question. Um, that nothing goes wrong, that your loans stay competitive, and that you get, you know, you're with the right lender. And yeah, we're trying to use technology to make that come to life or sort of improve that that offering. >> Okay. Can I just hear from you, Jake? >> I suppose, yeah, look, the idea is of the day or the days of the one and done transaction. Um, yeah, really resonates a lot with us here at Freedom. Yeah, that's been our
15:11 - philosophy all the way uh from day one. So yeah, our mission um as part of the broader property business as well is to help our Australians achieve financial freedom, right, and happiness through strategic and safe property investment. So for most people, you know, we know that that's not going to happen by just purchasing one property and stopping it uh stopping there. So that's why we've actually pivoted. We call our brokers investment lending managers, right? They're not
15:38 - there to just help arrange a loan and move on, right? Leave the client alone. they're actually there to manage the me manage the member or the client's experience all the way through the long term. So, you know, we're when we're helping someone buy their first investment, we're already thinking several steps ahead. You know, what's the right structure today? What lender are we going to use? How do we protect their borrowing capacity, continue to keep purchasing? What decision that we
16:03 - make today? How is that going to affect their ability to keep continuing to purchase in the future? So, you know, it's one of our the one of our biggest challenges, um, as it always has, but it's always quite rewarding is client education throughout. So, um, you know, a new investor might come in and compare their loan to, you know, their friend's home loan or see a cheaper rate online or, um, you know, question why we're recommending a structure that they've never heard of or something
16:31 - that's quite completely different. So, our job's not really just to tell them um what we're recommending. We're explaining why we need to recommend it, what other alternatives there could be, and how each option that they've got is really going to affect their broader um strategy that we're putting forward. So, you know, we all know that sometimes the cheapest loan today is not going to be the best loan. Who wants to build a big large portfolio for tomorrow? So, um when
16:55 - clients understand that um they become a lot more confident in their strategy and move and really more really engaged with within the rest of the process. But I think the main key thing there is that it creates tr a lot of trust. Um and that's what we want to focus on um over the course of um you sort of sort of building strong relationships with clients is that trust component. So it makes them want to come back for annual reviews. We come back and we retain them for refinancing reviews in
17:22 - the future. We look at future purchases beyond that of the immediate transaction. So, um, for us, success is not really just focused around getting one loan approved and settled. It's really focusing in on those returning clients that are looking at their second, third, fourth, or fifth investments and knowing that um, we've helped them take a really big and meaningful step towards their what their version of financial freedom looks like um, in the future. >> All right, switching over to ALIC. Take
17:52 - it away, Damian. I feel very um privileged to be able to say this, but from our very inception um ALIC has always had one clear vision to ethically enable wealth creation through investing in property. And that's led to our clients predominantly having long long-standing relationships with us. I'm talking 17 plus year relationships even before we originated the company. Um, a lot of the clients had a long-term relationship with their investment um, lending manager, advisers, their true
18:24 - trusted advisor, relationship manager. I was in banking for a long time and I saw that word get thrown around quite loosely often, but it didn't really come to pass what that truly meant in a true advisory business. Having seen that at ALIC, I I've really started to appreciate the whole essence behind that. And I think the thing that really differentiates us and what makes us so ingrained with our clients over the long term through all of their I guess uh buying activity, lending activity is
18:56 - that we've always remained true very much to our core which is to do it without motive. We don't take any kickbacks. We don't take any in-house relationships. We're strategic in just structuring the lending and the lending alone. We don't have any in-house anything. uh it's all about bringing the right business partners around that client to ethically enable that wealth creation journey, that enablement that allows them to achieve their goals. So, we're very proud of that fact. It's
19:23 - what's really sort of cemented um our business model around that purpose and vision quite clearly and ethically, and it's what will hold us true and I think it's one of the key reasons um why our customers keep coming back to us. >> All right. Um, so Rachel, how is Infinity Group tackling these challenges? >> Well, we generally believe that settlement shouldn't be the end of a relationship with a client. It's almost it should almost be the beginning. A client's financial position is
19:52 - constantly changing and so is of course the market and the economy. So, their income changes, property values change, interest rates change, equity grows, families change, and then goals evolve. So, our relationship continues well beyond arranging that original loan. We work with our clients on how they can manage and reduce their mortgage rapidly. As I mentioned before, in under 10 years, we're regularly reviewing their position, identifying opportunities to restructure or refinance only where appropriate, and
20:20 - then helping them think about maybe what comes next for them, like increasing their investment property portfolio, as an example. The biggest challenge I see today is probably information overload. Clients are more educated than ever. They can compare rates online. They can use calculators, watch financial content, listen to podcasts, and now AI virtually any question imaginable in our space. But having more information doesn't necessarily create more clarity. So a broker's value proposition is
20:50 - changing. It still makes us incredibly valuable in this industry. Clients don't necessarily need us to tell them what the interest rate is. I mean, Google or ChatGPt can do that. They need us to help them understand what all this information actually means for them and need the in-depth and ongoing education, which is what we pride ourselves on here. So, I think the future broker becomes less of a loan facilitator and much more of a long-term financial strategist around debt and property. >> Yeah. Well, Todd, I'm sure MedX Finance
21:22 - has a unique perspective here, so I'd love to hear from you. >> Yeah, thanks, Bill. Yeah, [clears throat] we do have a little bit of a unique perspective in the sense that we actually started very much as a commercial and asset finance business and we're still the vast not the majority but uh roughly half of what we still do uh currently is still very much in that commercial space um with the resi very much there to service those uh those commercial clients. The thing with commercial is it is very much
21:50 - about that long-term relationship. Um a lot of our a lot of our brokers around the country have um have had 15 20 25 year relationships in some cases with their clients uh and they've just followed them from uh from lender to lender over the years. So I think I think commercially it's very much about being more of that sort of trusted advisor and almost you know like a quasi you know sort of business uh not so much a business advisory piece but a business sounding board in a lot of instances and
22:20 - I think that that's always um we've been quite fortunate in that sense that it's never really been one and done for us. It's uh it's very much about the long-term relationship. >> Uh so Redom and certainly Flint has grown quite significantly this year. So I'd love to hear your perspective here. >> Look, it's an interesting question. Uh I think our answer to this has been a real investment in centralizing data. Uh so one of the challenges that mortgage broking businesses have had at least in
22:48 - my experience is we often have information sets on their customers sitting in different locations. Uh particularly with aggregator systems involved here. Uh so what Flint has been doing is been investing in centralizing the data that we have from an individual customer for their entire loan journey into one location. Uh doing so allows us to have the broad infrastructure set to be able to do regular reviews in an instantaneous and automated way. Uh I think Rachel touched on it. The world is changing where information is free now.
23:19 - Anyone can get access to the information that was previously gated by mortgage brokers. You can do service and cars, pricing, everything that we had in the past is now available in the customer's hands with a few clicks on the button. So they don't need us for information. So in terms of execution, if we can simplify the process as much as possible to give customers live up-to-date data on their own individual situations uh through their loan journey and through their property ownership journey, it
23:45 - allows us to actually play that role as that trusted adviser and be almost in constant communication with them. uh but the starting point to any of that is actually centralizing data. So our last six months has been a big investment in changing the way our data flows work and ensuring that right at the upfront part of every customer through Flint's you know entire journey and all of our franchises sits into one location which then allows us to enter into stage two where we can start building out the
24:13 - right automations and the right frameworks to be able to interact with our customers almost in a live sort of uh approach. Um, Lendy, for example, in the in the marketplace, I think they've done this best uh with their platform and how they communicate with their ongoing clients. >> Great. And uh, Hung, can I please hear from you? >> Yeah, I think for us, we're obviously ingraining AI into our business, doing things to systemize and automate as much as we can to give the sales or the
24:39 - brokers the opportunity to spend more time with their clients. In saying that, our brokers I feel very well qualified understanding everything that that is involved with the process. Right? So what happens from there is they get to spend more time with the clients which means essentially they're going to have more ability to make I guess all of that information as we were saying a lot clearer. It's all well and good to present data and present information. And what I find is it's
25:05 - comes down to a simple phone call sometimes just bring it back to basics and people really appreciate that as part of our business um is that we can give you all of the data sets and everything but they might not understand it. um you know we treat humans like humans and I think the thing is that let's book a time let's go through what we've sent you of obviously we're trying to create efficiencies in the business to get as much out there and minimize obviously the workload for our um for
25:27 - our brokers but then bring it all back to basics and just picking up the phone explaining to them and going through the white noise cutting through all of it and that simple 5 10 20 minute phone call um essentially makes a world of difference and I feel that is what makes I guess that relationship stronger and stickier long-term for us. couldn't agree more that a simple phone call can go a very long way these days. Uh thank you so much for these uh responses and Baber uh would you like to add
25:53 - anything to the conversation? >> Yeah, I want to say the answers that uh these great brokerages have given have really given me confidence into the future of um the industry going forward. I love the fact that everyone brought it back to customers and relationships because that is what this business is about. Um, I want to say big congratulations to all of the brokerages represented here and good luck at the awards and I also hope to see everybody on Friday 16 October at the AMAs or should I say the Oscars of the mortgage
26:26 - industry at the Fullerton Hotel Sydney. Can't wait. Tickets are flying out the door so make sure to book your seat now. Thank you very much. >> [music]
