The broker channel is growing. And National Australia Bank (NAB) is there to help support them.
"The broker channel is a hugely important channel," Adam Brown, executive broker distribution at NAB, said during a Forward View webinar, attended by Australian Broker. "More and more Australians are turning to brokers for support."
Brown shared his thoughts on the current market, calling 2025 "a big year."
"And I fully expect it's going to be a big year in 2026, again," he said.
The executive outlined NAB’s plans for the next 12 months, highlighting new initiatives and products set to hit the market.
"You'll see a number of things we'll do to really elevate the experience for brokers," Brown said. "Our ambition is to be Australia and New Zealand's most customer-centric company."
Australian Broker rounded up the key takeaways, how NAB is supporting brokers and what the major bank has planned as it heads into 2026.
After three rate cuts so far in 2025, NAB is currently anticipating the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will once again hold the official cash rate (OCR) at 3.60% during its November meeting on monetary policy. The major bank expects the next rate cut to come in May 2026.
Still, Brown said, "The market is strong; the property market has good momentum. All and all, customer sentiment is up, [there are] more property listings, clearance rates are strong, [there's] downward pressure on interest rates.
"It's a great opportunity for brokers to support their customers right now," he said.
Brown added that NAB will "continue to improve our policies, listen to feedback, make tweaks where we think it makes sense, to support brokers and those customers who they introduce us to."
Australia’s persistent housing shortage has long been one of the nation’s most pressing challenges.
In 2023, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – who was re-elected to the Labor Party in May – unveiled an ambitious plan to build 1.2 million new homes across the nation by 2029 by way of the National Housing Accord.
But the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) stats suggest Australia is falling short. Total building approvals fell 6% in August, in seasonally-adjusted terms. That's on top of a 8.2% decline in July.
Brown agreed that "the supply side is still a bit of a challenge. There's still not enough affordable housing.
"NAB is playing its part by investing in housing developments, affordable housing developments," he added. "And we'll continue to do that. But that supply side is still a bit of a challenge for Australians."
Brown said Australia's investment market is gaining momentum, which is evident in NAB's data.
"We've also seen strength in the investment market," Brown said. "What we've seen over the last six months is we've seen the growth rate of investment properties outpace owner-occupied properties."
Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence. And rightfully so.
"It's really fast paced and it's changing really quickly," Brown said.
"What it doesn't do, it doesn't take away from the relationship that brokers have with customers, that [NAB] has with customers," he added. "That's always going to be really strong. That's why [more than] 77% of customers are still choosing a broker to get their home loan.
"What is changing is how we support those customers and how we support brokers," Brown said. "And technology is a great enabler for that. And AI is certainly a great enabler for that as well. Where the biggest benefits are right now are bringing efficiencies into broker businesses and bringing efficiencies into banks.
"We're trying to make some of those routine tasks simpler," he said. "AI is taking the place of some of those routine tasks. And what it's doing, it's actually freeing up people to go spend more time on the value-add activities. So we'll see a continued acceleration of that throughout the year."
As technology accelerates the pace of change, it’s also creating more opportunities for borrowers and brokers to be targeted by scams.
Brown said the bank is turning to AI to help fight fraud.
"It's still a problem. The good news is that we're catching a lot of it before customers are impacted," he said.
The executive added: "There's a role for brokers to play, not only in educating customers. But in also protecting their own businesses."
NAB is sharpening its focus on specialized customer segments, including the mass affluent market.
Brown described this cohort as "customers who are looking to grow their wealth. People are looking to get ahead and there's a number of ways of doing that."
He added that "sometimes their needs are a little bit more complex."
It makes sense then that roughly eight months ago, NAB promoted Lucia La Bella to the role of executive, specialized distribution NAB, where she is responsible for all specialized customer segments and distribution channels.
La Bella described the mass affluent channel as one of the biggest opportunities, for both brokers and the bank.
"They're customers who are growing and amassing their wealth," she said. "They're not quite high-net-worth yet, but they're on that journey. They might have a family; they're looking at their investment property portfolio. They might have a business on the side and they have self-employed income. [So we ask], how do we support those customers in a differentiated way? We really want to focus on that segment."
