Sydney's leading brokers on building for what's next

Eight of Sydney's leading mortgage brokers gathered at NextGen's North Sydney office in August for the second of the 2026 Broker Advisory Roundtables, following the Melbourne session earlier in the year. Custom technology, AI-enabled fraud and investing in the next generation of brokers dominated proceedings. Despite spanning very different operations and business models, what they shared was a common posture: each is actively shaping what their business looks like next, even in a market where plenty is outside their control.

What are Sydney's top mortgage brokers focused on building in 2026?

Eight brokerage business leaders sat down at NextGen's North Sydney office for the second of the 2026 Broker Advisory Roundtables. The group spanned high-net-worth specialists, diversified multi-office businesses, newer entrants and 20-year veterans, residential and commercial. Each is actively shaping what their business looks like next, even in a market where plenty is outside their control. Renee Blethyn, head of broker partnerships at NextGen, set the tone. "What I remain very optimistic about is those who choose to stay in this industry because of the pride they have in what they do and the collective sharing of information," she said. "It's not just about having a successful business, it's about how important what you do is for the people you serve."

What are the two main growth strategies for mortgage brokerages right now?

Two distinct strategies emerged and they pulled in opposite directions. Steve Bourne, of diversified lending business Lending Association, framed it as a binary choice. "You either need to have scale to do everything well, or you become very good at a narrow customer segment. There's no in-between," he said. Mark Kevin of Mortgage Advice Bureau is betting on the smaller, sharper end. "My business, in two or three years, could just be two or three of us here, a couple offshore, and everything else digital. And we could still do a massive volume." Patrick Moore of Loan Market Clayfield predicted the opposite trend for much of the market: independent brokers consolidating into larger, better-resourced businesses with the scale to invest more in technology and reach.

How are mortgage brokers protecting clients and businesses from AI-enabled fraud?

Fraud came up as a concern every broker shared. Bourne pointed to a harder problem than individual vigilance: the risk of being penalised for fraud committed elsewhere in the chain, by a client, an accountant or a referral partner, with no fault of his broker network. Adam Boyle, founder of ABL Wealth, raised a related gap. Lenders detect fraud inconsistently, and nothing joins the dots between them. "If you've picked up on how to detect an AI'd payslip and the other bank hasn't, why could that not be centralised?" he said. What brokers wanted was shared visibility, so a red flag caught by one lender does not go unseen by the rest.

Why are leading Sydney brokerages building their own technology rather than buying it?

The strongest businesses in the room are not waiting for a platform to solve their specific problem. Bourne manages a business that has grown through acquisition with loan books spread across multiple aggregators. He built his own CRM to pull data from disconnected systems into one view, an investment he said was worth it to run the business more effectively. Melanie Cunliffe, founder of Indigo Finance, took a similar approach to managing her back book. She moved that work onto an AI platform that can flag a client's available equity automatically. That freed her team for more proactive client work instead of manual reviews. "As the industry gets choppier, nurturing the back book and making sure clients are really well serviced matters more than ever," she said.

How is Katie Thomas using AI to remove key person risk from her brokerage?

Katie Thomas of Focus Finance went furthest. She used years of recorded client and team meetings to build what she calls a coded version of herself, an onboarding platform that captures her conversational style, how she reads a client and how she trains new team members. "I decentralised the key person risk of me, so that can go through the entire team, from every level," she said. Bourne's CRM, Cunliffe's equity-flagging platform and Thomas's onboarding tool are all built entirely around their owners' specific business needs. None could have been bought off the shelf.

How should the mortgage broking industry develop the next generation of brokers?

Thomas pointed to how quickly a personal brand can now be built. Where new entrants once needed years to earn trust, a social media following can now do it faster. Nathan Smith of Birdie Wealth has been a broker for 20 years. "The pathway to becoming a broker has always been really easy," he said. "But you weren't a trusted broker for 5 or 10 years, you had to put in the time." Moore offered a concrete model. "I love the concept of time in role. Come join my business, do a couple of years, and I'll take you through it." Between them, they made a case for a more formalised structure: time spent as a para-broker or credit analyst, learning alongside an experienced broker before receiving a broker code.

Why do Sydney mortgage brokers openly share knowledge with direct competitors?

This group connects its own choices back to the industry's reputation as a whole. Aaron Christie-David of Atelier Wealth put it plainly: "I think, like all of us, we have a desire, and partly an obligation, to think about this industry as a whole, not just our own business." He calls it 'the pursuit of potential'. Eight brokers running very different businesses spent two hours being open about what's working, what isn't and what they're building next. Cunliffe captured the mood. "Technically, you could say we're all competitors, but it never feels that way. Everyone's so sharing, with knowledge, with best practice." That is not a small thing in an industry that now facilitates more than 80% of new residential home lending in Australia. Brokers looking for further insight into strategy, technology and peer knowledge across the industry can explore Australian Broker's premium sponsored reports. If this roundtable is useful to your network, share it on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Roundtable participants

• Patrick Moore: mortgage broker, Loan Market Clayfield.
• Nathan Smith: mortgage broker, Birdie Wealth; 20-year industry veteran based in Sutherland Shire.
• Melanie Cunliffe: founder, Indigo Finance.
• Steve Bourne: mortgage broker, Lending Association; leads a diversified lending business built through acquisition.
• Katie Thomas: mortgage broker, Focus Finance.
• Adam Boyle: founder, ABL Wealth.
• Mark Kevin: mortgage broker, Mortgage Advice Bureau.
• Aaron Christie-David: mortgage broker, Atelier Wealth.
• Renee Blethyn: head of broker partnerships, NextGen; roundtable facilitator.
• Tony Carn: chief customer officer, NextGen; roundtable facilitator.