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More brokers are using loan pricing tools and automated rate tracking to ensure their clients are on competitive rates, according to rate platforms.
Following the February rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), brokers have been busy turning to technology to help them understand whether their existing clients are on competitive rates and identify those who may be able to benefit from being repriced or refinanced.
While many lenders have passed on the 25-basis point cut to borrowers already, some broker clients may still be sitting on interest rates that are higher than necessary.
However, with brokers unable to easily view the current rate of their back books, more are turning to open-banking-backed technology to help them find their clients a better detail.
For example, mortgage broker retention platform Sherlok has reported a sharp rise in demand for its Sherlok RateTraker services as borrowers seek out the most competitive rates.
More than $200 million in client loans was connected to Sherlok RateTraker in just two weeks following the February rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), which the company said reflected an “industry-wide push to strengthen client retention”.
On average, brokers now link over $100 million per week to Sherlok’s rate tracker, the fintech told The Adviser, highlighting a shift towards automated rate tracking as brokers work to ensure clients remain on competitive rates without the need for manual loan book reviews or client outreach.
Similarly, fintech platform Stryd – which has a Stryd Broker repository (a real-time product and pricing database that can be used by mortgage brokers to help them find better interest rates for their clients), told The Adviser that it had reviewed $67 million of broker-originated home loans since 28 February 2025.
The percentage of loans with a better offer for this period was 45.50 per cent.
Over the 12 months from September 2023 to September 2024, Stryd reviewed $100 billion in home loans on broker books and, in 51 per cent of cases, found there was a more competitive product or pricing offer available.
Stryd – which is currently touring the country with The Adviser’s Better Business Summit 2025, run in partnership with NAB – said that brokers are typically saving their clients thousands of dollars in interest repayments by repricing or refinancing them onto better rates.
The fintechs have noted that, despite lenders committing to passing through the full 25-bp rate cut through to borrowers, many home loan borrowers have outdated discounts, resulting in uncompetitive rates.
As such, former broker and Sherlok CEO Adam Grocke said brokers need to take action now before clients start looking elsewhere.
“We’re seeing brokers move quickly to get ahead of rate changes,” Grocke said.
“Many brokers tell us they feel blind when it comes to their clients’ actual rates. They simply don’t have the time or resources to manually check every loan, so they are looking for ways to automate the process and ensure their clients remain on competitive rates.”
Grocke added: “Rate tracking is no longer a once-a-year process.”
“Brokers are starting to integrate real-time rate monitoring into their workflow, ensuring their clients are always on a good deal. It’s becoming an essential part of post-settlement service.”
Speaking to The Adviser at the Better Business Summit in Perth last week, Stryd founder and CEO Ruth Hatherley said: “Trail book retention inside a broking organisation is typically manual ... what we do is allow you to upload a small or large portion of your entire trail book and automate the assessment of that book ...”
“We give [brokers] all those insights and, as the broker, they are the hero. They communicate with their customer about what is the best position to take, what the next step that they need to take for their home loan. And it may or not be that they reprice or refinance,” Hatherley added, noting that rate is not always the primary consideration for borrowers.
However, she noted that a broker had refinanced two customers this month after using the platform and had not realised they were “at risk” of leaving him due to their rate. He refinanced these customers and earned $4,000 in upfront commissions, the Stryd CEO said.
The use of open banking has been growing in popularity for brokers and lenders, but the tech has not been without its obstacles in the home loan space. Recent analysis of home loan product reference data revealed that 97 per cent of Australian banks had data quality problems in their open-banking data for home loans.
However, brokers and aggregators are increasingly looking to use open banking to cut manual processes and speed up approval times, with a partnership announced between Connective and NextGen last month centred on open banking.
You can find out how Stryd is providing open-banking data to brokers to help them retain their back books at the Better Business Summit 2025, run in partnership with NAB.
The Better Business Summit 2025 will continue to the following locations:
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Thursday, 20 March, at Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, Brisbane.
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Friday, 28 March, at InterContinental, Adelaide.
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Thursday, 3 April, at Hyatt Regency Sydney, Sydney.
Learn more about the speakers, view the full agenda, and make sure to secure your tickets now.
For more information about the Better Business Summit 2025, click here.
[Related: Victorian/Tasmanian winners unveiled for Better Business Awards 2025]
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