A Lower Hutt adviser on creative thinking, client trust, and the AI challenge facing the industry
Brock Shute did not plan to become a mortgage adviser. After a decade as a share trader and five years as a senior business manager at ANZ, it was a growing conviction — that he could do more for people outside the walls of a big bank — that prompted the shift.
"I realised I could help more people by becoming an independent adviser and being able to provide financial advice," Shute says.
That decision in 2018 set him on a path that would eventually lead to co-founding The Mortgage Advice Company in Lower Hutt alongside two colleagues, earning recognition as one of NZ Adviser's Top Advisers in both 2023 and 2024.
The moment that defined his career
Ask Shute for a career highlight and he does not reach for a settlement figure or an industry accolade. He reaches for a client.
She had been to five brokers before she found him. Every single one had told her the same thing: she could not afford to buy her first home. Shute disagreed.
"With some outside the box thinking we managed to get her and her family into their first home within a couple months," he says. "Tears of joy were had when we got the approval. Was a very rewarding interaction to be able to help them into their first home, which they thought was unattainable."
It is a story that captures something essential about what independent advisers offer that lenders often cannot — the willingness to look past a standard template and find a solution that fits the person.
The AI problem nobody is talking about honestly
Shute is candid about where he sees the industry's biggest challenge coming from — and it is not regulation or rising rates.
"The rise of AI and being able to harness it and use it in the right way — something we are constantly reviewing," he says. But it is the client-facing dimension that concerns him most. "The challenge is that our clients rely on what the likes of ChatGPT say they should be doing, rather than listening to their adviser."
As AI tools become more accessible, the risk is not just that advisers are displaced by automation — it is that clients arrive with pre-formed conclusions drawn from general information that may not apply to their circumstances. The adviser's job becomes as much about rebuilding trust in human expertise as it does about structuring the right loan.
What it takes to do this well
That challenge makes the foundations of good advising more important than ever. On the question of what makes a strong adviser, Shute is practical.
"You need to have a good base understanding of how to structure an application, so the natural fit is an ex-banker," he says. "But then you also need a good foundation in property activity to understand the process to be able to help your clients with aspects they might not even know existed."
It is advice that reflects his own career arc — moving from equities trading to banking to broking, accumulating layers of financial literacy along the way. For Shute, the technical knowledge and the human instinct are inseparable — and both take time to build.
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