Key points
Mortgage brokers now facilitate 81% of new residential home lending in Australia, up from 55.3% in March 2018. Leading aggregators settled $124.88 billion in new home loans during the March 2026 quarter alone. This makes the broker channel an important source of growth for banks and non-bank lenders.
The broker population is also growing. Australia had 22,265 mortgage brokers as at September 2024, a 12% increase from the previous year.
For lenders, this creates significant reach. It also creates a difficult question:
Where should your teams focus?
A large, accredited network does not automatically create broad growth. Loan volume may be concentrated within a relatively small group of active brokers, making it harder to see which relationships have more room to grow and where your market coverage could be strengthened.
The answer may not be adding more brokers. It may be getting a clearer view of the opportunity already around you.
A large network can hide a concentrated business
Many lenders need to balance thousands of possible broker relationships with limited sales and marketing resources.
A Business Development Manager may cover a large geographic area and an extensive broker portfolio. They need to decide:
- which current relationships to develop
- which inactive brokers to re-engage
- which new brokers to approach
- which locations deserve more attention
- which products to discuss in each market
This becomes more difficult when network size is used as the main measure of coverage.
In Experian’s work experience with lenders, we have seen examples where fewer than 10% of available brokers actively write loans with the lender. Within that group, around 80% of revenue may come from 20% of active brokers.
Strong broker relationships are valuable. But heavy concentration can make growth dependent on a small number of relationships and leave other areas of opportunity harder to see.
Current performance only shows part of the picture
You already have data about the brokers writing business with you.
It can tell you:
- how much business each broker writes
- which products they use
- how performance changes over time
- which relationships contribute the most revenue.
These measures are important, but they mainly show past and present activity. They do not always show the potential market around each broker.
A broker with modest current activity could operate in an area with strong demand and a high concentration of households that align with your products. Another broker may perform well today but operate in a market with less room for further growth.
Neither result can be assumed from performance data alone.
A more useful question: Is this broker’s current performance in line with the opportunity available in their area?
Build a clearer view of local opportunity
Experian can help you bring together your broker and customer data with market, household and credit demand insights.
The approach is designed to help you:
- identify broker locations and define the local areas they serve
- understand the profiles of customers using your products
- assess household characteristics and demand signals around each broker
- compare current performance with local market potential
- identify brokers and locations that may warrant closer attention
Depending on the scope, the output may include:
- broker catchment maps
- broker opportunity rankings
- local household profiles
- credit demand indicators
- product-level opportunity views
- planning data for sales and marketing teams.
The Broker Network Optimisation proposition is designed to provide broker rankings, opportunity mapping, customer segment breakdowns, performance scores and opportunity scores. Together, these outputs can help teams move from broad network coverage to clearer priorities.
Turn analysis into a practical shortlist
The analysis should give your teams somewhere useful to start. In one proof of concept, Experian assessed broker catchments for two lender products within Victoria. The analysis identified over 100 high-potential brokers for each product.
Broker locations were assessed using indicators such as:
- relevant household segments
- mortgage credit demand within the catchment
- the proportion of business-owning households
- alignment with the lender’s existing customer profiles.
The result was not intended to be another research report. It gave the sales team a practical shortlist of brokers to assess, prioritise and engage.
Help your teams decide where to focus
Better insight does not replace the knowledge and experience of your sales team.
Your Business Development Managers understand the relationships, service needs and commercial factors that influence broker performance. Market insight can add another layer to that knowledge.
It can help them:
- validate their view of a broker or region
- identify relationships that may have more potential
- plan their time across large territories
- prepare more relevant broker conversations
- identify areas that need further investigation.
Marketing teams can use the same view to consider where awareness and audience activity may have the greatest value.
Finance and Strategy teams can use it to explore channel concentration, sales coverage and the potential case for investing in different markets.
This creates a more consistent way for teams to discuss and act on opportunity.
Start with the opportunity, not the broker count
The broker channel continues to grow in importance. Mortgage broker market share increased from 74.1% in March 2024 to 81% in March 2026. Leading aggregators settled $124.88 billion in new home loads during the March 2026 quarter, $25.51 billion more than the same quarter a year earlier.
For lenders, this makes effective broker coverage increasingly important. Network size can show your potential reach. But it does not tell you whether the network is working as effectively as it could.
A more useful view connects three things:
- how your brokers perform today
- who lives and borrows in the areas they serve
- how closely those local markets align with your products.
This can help you move from broad coverage to more focused growth planning. Instead of treating every broker or location in the same way, your teams can focus their attention where the evidence suggests a closer look may be worthwhile.
A practical guide, not a guaranteed outcome
Broker Network Optimisation is not designed to predict which Lender will write the next loan.
Broker relationships, service, product suitability, pricing, policy and market conditions will all continue to affect performance.
The approach is designed to give your teams a stronger evidence base for deciding where to focus. It can help reduce uncertainty, test existing assumptions and identify opportunities that may be difficult to see from performance data alone.
In a market where brokers facilitate more than eight in 10 new residential home loans, a clearer view of your network could be more valuable than simply building a bigger one.
Explore your broker network opportunity
Frequently asked questions
What is Broker Network Optimisation?
Broker Network Optimisation combines agreed lender inputs with Experian market insights to assess opportunity across broker locations and catchments.
What is a broker catchment?
A broker catchment is the local market a broker serves. It may include the area around an office, a group of suburbs or a broader geographic territory.
Does the approach identify individual customers?
No. It uses agreed inputs and aggregated market information to assess opportunity at an area or catchment level.
What information can be used?
Depending on the agreed scope, the analysis may use broker locations, customer profiles, household characteristics, business ownership and aggregated credit demand indicators.
Can the approach begin with one product or region?
Yes. A lender can begin with a selected product, region, broker segment or sales territory before considering a broader rollout.
Does the analysis predict broker performance?
No. Opportunity indicators should be considered alongside sales experience, broker knowledge, product suitability, policy, service and market conditions.