Australia's broking channel continues to expand its reach, with brokers now playing an increasingly central role in the nation's residential mortgage market.
In the June 2026 quarter alone, brokers facilitated 81.6% of all new residential home loans, according to the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA). The pace of activity is equally striking: throughout 2025, brokers facilitated a residential home loan roughly every 38 seconds. That equated to 838,815 home loans over the course of the year, an increase of 17.2%, or 122,800 more loans, compared with 2024.
"The industry has continued to grow and thrive," Anja Pannek, chief executive officer of the MFAA, told Australian Broker. "I think the hero number, which we talk about very proudly, is continued growth in market share. We've got greater capacity, greater output in industry, and there is growth in brokers.
"That is an extraordinary reflection of the role mortgage brokers now play in helping Australians navigate the home lending market," she continued. "These figures demonstrate the trust Australians continue to place in mortgage brokers and the significant contribution our industry makes to home ownership and property investment across the country.”
These are just some of the findings of the inaugural State of Mortgage & Finance Broking Report 2026, commissioned by the MFAA and analysed by market research firm Cotality. The new report builds on the MFAA’s previous bi-annual Industry Intelligence Service Report, expanding its scope to provide a more detailed and data-rich picture of Australia’s mortgage and finance broking sector. Covering the 12 months from 1 January to 31 December 2025, the report draws on data supplied by nine participating MFAA aggregator member partners: Australian Finance Group (AFG), Connective, Finsure, Lendi Group, Loan Market Group (LMG), Mortgage Choice, National Mortgage Brokers, Specialist Finance Group (SFG) and YellowBrickRoad Aggregation.
The report provides a broad snapshot of the industry, tracking everything from settlement volumes and lender market share to broker demographics, revenue and business structures.
"Our ambition with this [report] is to continue to expand and evolve the data points working with aggregated partners so [the] industry can get rich information and metrics," Pannek explained. "I think of one of the things that really astounds me, in a pleasant way, about this industry is that given [that] really there's no regulatory requirement to submit data in the way that banks submit, [or the way that] a lot of regulated bodies submit to regulators, we've created an ecosystem where participants actively and willingly provide datasets that help immensely."
The CEO added that the data is helpful also because "broking is a competitive market within and of itself. This, sort of, part-time broking where you're sort of in and out. I think that that's going to become increasingly difficult [in the current environment.] Just because you need support around you to be successful. It doesn't mean you can't be a single broker. But I think it's what support you have around you and what services you want to provide."
The full report is available for free to MFAA members, or for a sale for non-members.
Australian Broker rounded up some of the top insights.
The numbers point to an industry that is not simply holding its ground, but continuing to build momentum as more Australians turn to brokers to navigate the home loan market.
The broker population grew 9.1% during the 2025 calendar year, from 22,105 to 24,116, according to the report. That's equal to one broker for every 904 Australian adults, compared with one broker for every 969 adults in 2024. Population growth was broad-based around the country, but New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory remains the largest market.
Female brokers, however, remain the minority at just 27.4%, according to the MFAA's June 2026 quarterly report, up just 0.6% percentage points since the September 2024 report. There was little movement, albeit a slight decline, in the share of residential settlement value attributed to female brokers, which stood at 25.6% across seven aggregators in 2025, versus 25.9% in 2024.
Meanwhile, residential settlements increased 23.5% to $495.55 billion, up from $401.21 billion in 2024, while loans settled rose 17.2% to 838,815 in the year. Home loan applications were also up 18.4% to 911,150 for the year. The broker-originationed residential loan book for the industry grew to about $1.17 trillion, an increase of roughly 11%
The value of those settlements reached $495.55 billion, an increase of $94.34 billion or 23.5%. Home loan applications also increased strongly. Within a matched sample of eight participating aggregators, 911,150 applications were lodged during 2025, up 18.4% on the previous year.
Lender distribution through the broker channel continued to shift. While major banks remained the largest segment, accounting for 43.88% of reported new residential lending value in 2025, that was down from 44.21% in 2024. Non-banks, meanwhile, continue to take share, at 7.2% of the market in 2025, up from 6.5% a year before.
"Seeing a spread of lenders is important," Pannek said. "It also demonstrates that brokers are recommending clients not just to the Big Four, but outside of the Big Four. And if you wind back, even to GFC days, I remember a point at which this chart was probably 80% majors. So this is the true value that brokers bring, and the benefit from that, that you, is better service, competitive pricing, product solutions and innovation."
Major-bank-owned regional brands and independent regional banks also saw their market share decline in 2025. Major-bank-owned regional brands fell from 16.5% in 2024 to 14.7%, while independent regional banks dropped from 6.5% to 5.4%.
By contrast, international banks and lenders in the “other” category increased their share. Mutual banks were the only category to remain unchanged, holding steady at 3.1% in both 2024 and 2025.
The report also highlighted continued growth in commercial and asset finance broking, with both broker numbers and settlement values increasing in 2025. The number of commercial brokers rose 6.3% over the year, climbing from 11,084 in 2024 to 11,785 in 2025. At the same time, the value of commercial, business and asset finance deals settled by brokers jumped to $52.3 billion, up from $41.1 billion in 2024.
"It's a significant area of growth across industry. And what we're hearing from our members is there's just huge demand and appetite for education in this area," Pannek said. "Commercial is far more complex than residential, because there's all these different definitions and products within that.
"And obviously, the deal size, the average deal size, is increasing, which could potentially mean an increase in terms of where brokers are playing in the space, the type of deal sizes, the type of deals, and also the type of commercial, because commercial forms a really broad part of the market," she added.
While broker revenue continued to grow, so too did clawbacks. Median gross broker revenue reported increased roughly 16% to $126,941, up from $109,473 the year prior. Meanwhile, the median gross clawback per broker rose 16.5% to $11,442, based on five matched aggregators.
"This is the first time that we've got clawback data at an industry level," Pannek said.
"We do recognize that clawback activity, there is a correlation between clawback activity and sometimes the level of competition in a market," she added. "When you see a high degree of refinance activity — when we went through the cashback wars a number of years ago — we actually saw a step up in clawbacks. I think we're in a very competitive environment right now, and that is no doubt what you are hearing speaking to brokers out there. It's something we're monitoring very, very closely."
Also on the rise, aggregator gross upfront commissions were up 21.3% across six matched aggregators in the year. Median gross trail revenue per broker was up 18.7% to $77,894.
