The 2025 Residential Mortgage Adviser of the Year on broken commission models
Eugene Bartsaikin (pictured) has a simple way of illustrating what is wrong with how mortgage advisers are paid. A client eligible for a green loan on solar panels — the right advice, correctly given — generates a $15,000 loan and a commission of $127.50. The time involved means every such transaction runs at a loss. His point is that not every adviser will do them anyway.
The backstory
Bartsaikin is director of Twine Advisers and 2025 Residential Mortgage Adviser of the Year. He has been in finance since he was 19 — bank teller, fund management operations, stockbroker — before finding his way to mortgage advice after watching something he couldn't ignore: his parents navigating the most important financial decisions of their lives with nobody genuinely in their corner.
"The GFC made that gap impossible to ignore — hardworking families need an advocate," he says. That conviction has shaped everything about how he runs his business, including a willingness to call out the structural problems he believes are holding the industry back.
The commission problem nobody wants to solve
The current model pays advisers approximately 0.85% upfront on loan placement, with the expectation that this covers both initial advice and ongoing service. In practice, Bartsaikin argues, the financial incentive to keep servicing a client evaporates the moment the loan settles.
" The simple reality is that the only incentive for advisers to continue offering the ongoing service and advice is their own desire to do the right thing," he says.
Bartsaikin’s preferred model already exists at two lenders: 0.55% upfront and 0.15% trail.
"In my view, this represents a fair cost relative to the effort involved and helps advisers build sustainable businesses with support staff," he says.
Bartsaikin acknowledges the counterargument — that it costs banks more long-term — but suggests lenders could survey clients to verify ongoing service quality as a condition of the trail payment.
Depth over volume
Before mortgage advice, Bartsaikin was pulled up as a stockbroker for having average call lengths more than twice those of his colleagues. He wears it as a badge of honour and has built Twine around the same instinct — going deep on client relationships rather than chasing volume.
That approach is what he credits for sustaining the business through its early years, and it informs his view on where the industry still falls short.
"Good operators need to continue being vocal in the industry as that sets the standard on what clients should expect as sadly there are still far too many operators that don't quite put the necessary professional approach," he says.
The industry's shift in language from "broking" to "advice" reflects a real cultural change, but execution remains uneven.
Advice for new entrants
For those entering the profession, Bartsaikin is clear that qualifications alone won't bridge the gap. He estimates the Level 5 certificate probably delivers only around 10% of the knowledge needed to operate effectively. Spend at least two years under an experienced adviser, he says — the rest comes from deal variety, repetition, and proximity to someone who has already made the mistakes.
The gap his parents faced — good people, working hard, with no one genuinely in their corner — is the same gap he has spent a decade trying to close. Whether the industry closes it more broadly, he suggests, comes down to whether the right structures and the right people are finally aligned.
Stay informed with the latest housing market trends and mortgage insights — subscribe to our free daily newsletter.
