The Top 25 Brokerages 2024: The dragons of industry

Brokers continued to show incredible resilience and strength in supporting their customers throughout 2023. High-performing brokerages build strong relationships and deliver exceptional service to customers, helping them navigate the complexities of the ever-evolving mortgage market.

As the bank behind the broker, NAB is proud to champion The Adviser’s Top 25 Brokerages, which have made outstanding contributions to facilitating the dreams of Australians, whether they are buying a home or running a business.

NAB has had a longstanding commitment to the broking channel and to supporting brokers to continue to put customers’ interest first. This is evidenced by our continued investment and innovation in our broker business, providing simple and digital lending solutions backed with fast, consistent service.

On behalf of NAB, I would like to congratulate and commend the leading brokerages recognised this year for their outstanding commitment to helping customers achieve their financial goals.

Adam Brown, executive, broker distribution, NAB

The dragons of industry

The financial year 2023 was a record-breaking year for refinancing, as the central bank lifted rates an eye-watering 10 times between July 2022 and June 2023 in the fastest rate-hiking cycle on record. The cash rate rose from 1.35 per cent in July 2022 to 4.10 per cent by the end of June 2023, with record numbers of borrowers looking to save costs as hundreds of thousands of borrowers also rolled off their super-low fixed-rate terms and sought a better deal. For context, in July 2023, $17.5 billion of loans were externally refinanced – but by the end of the year this had risen to around $20 billion; the first time in history that this milestone had been breached.

As such, very few brokerages this year wrote more new loans than they did in the bumper year of FY22, when new mortgage activity was at its peak given super-low interest rates (over $30 billion a month). However, there were only seven exceptions to this rule, with Nectar Mortgages, Resolve Finance, Empower Wealth, AUSUN Finance, Green Finance Group, Redrock Group, and Inovayt all writing a large number of loans in FY23 than they did in FY22.

But despite the strong refinancing trend, brokers in the Top 25 Brokerages ranking for 2024 wrote a huge 184,244 loans over the year – more than in the bumper year of FY21 and only around 8,000 less than in FY22, making it a huge achievement.

How the Top 25 Brokerages fared

Topping the ranking this year was the major broking franchise brand Aussie. The major brokerage has the largest number of brokers in the ranking – with 1,076 branded brokers – who helped write the largest value of loans in FY23, $24.2 billion – building its loan book by more than $5.8 billion.

Its sister brokerage brand Lendi also made it among the top brokerages in the ranking this year, with its 254 brokers having settled 15,182 loans in the year, totalling more than $7 billion. That pushed it into fourth place.

Coming in at second place was Mortgage Choice, another major brokerage brand that has been quickly building its number of brokers in the last year. Over the financial year, for example, it welcomed 64 new brokers to the franchise, taking it to 1,066 brokers. They helped write the largest number of loans in FY23 of any Top 25 Brokerage; 53,612. This took Mortgage Choice’s loan book to $89 billion – making it the largest book of any company in the ranking.

Loan Market franchise brokers helped the branded brokerage secure third place in the ranking this year, with its 649 Loan Market brokers settling 29,912 loans in FY23. The total value of loans settled by Loan Market brokers in the last financial year came in at $15.4 billion.

While Lendi may be part of a mega brokerage group (the Lendi Group, which also owns Aussie), it came top of the non-franchise brokerage groups and in fourth place overall. Other independent brokerages that are dominating are Sydney-based brokerage Shore Financial, Azura Financial, the Australian Lending & Investment Centre (ALIC), Resolve Finance, and commercial brokerage Simplicity Loans & Advisory.

However, one of the key trends now coming out of the brokerage groups is that brokers are no longer limiting themselves to one jurisdiction or format. Several – such as Resolve Finance and Nectar Mortgages – offer both franchise and non-franchise opportunities for brokers wishing to join them, while others, like Shore Financial and ALIC, have opened offices or branched out to broking across multiple states.

Moving forward, consolidation looks to be a common theme that we will see in this financial year. With several brokerages in the Top 25 Brokerages ranking having merged or acquired other businesses. Recent moves include Smartmove’s integration with Viridian Financial Group Limited and Court Financial Services and financial services provider UFinancial announced their merger.

Methodology

The Adviser’s Top 25 Brokerages ranking is determined based on submissions from Australia’s largest brokerages.

In each submission, brokerages are asked to provide a range of performance metrics including loan book size, number and value of loans written within the financial year, and a host of other measures to determine their size and scale.

Each of these submissions is independently verified by Agile Market Intelligence with supporting documents and communications with each brokerage.

The ranking is calculated based on the relative rank of six metrics including loan book, value of loans settled, number of loans settled, number of active brokers/loan writers, loan book by years in business, and broker efficiency (value of loans settled divided by number of brokers).

A brokerage’s final rank is determined based on the sum of these metric ranks, equally weighted, to determine Australia’s Top 25 Brokerages. These Top 25 Brokerages are then re-ranked based on these metrics to determine their final place within The Adviser’s Top 25 Brokerages.

*Figures from broking groups that operate multiple models only include figures from their branded brokers. For example, Loan Market figures only include the figures from brokers who operate under the Loan Market franchise brand (not those who operate under their own business name, but aggregate through LMG).

Tune in to hear more! You can find out more about the Top 25 Brokerages ranking 2024 in the In Focus podcast, partnered by NAB, here: