It is unusual for mortgage lenders in Australia to deal directly with brokers who put through a low level of applications. Most lenders have policies that direct them to only deal with Mortgage Brokers who submit at least a minimum level of applications each month, such as one or two million dollars worth.
This is a very high volume for most mortgage brokers to deal with. Each home loan will be worth several hundred thousand dollars, so the broker would need to submit an application a week to comply. This would be acceptable if brokers only dealt with one lender because each broker should be able to submit at least one application per week.
This does not, however, account for the Mortgage broking model as a whole. Mortgage intermediaries are supposed to provide a selection of lenders for their clients to choose from. In Australia, brokers offer mortgage products to their clients from up to around thirty different lenders. It is this choice that attracts customers to brokers instead of applying directly with a lender. A problem arises when each of the thirty lenders demand that at least one million dollars worth of business is closed with them each month. Therefore each broker would need to submit a total of millions of dollars worth of applications each month to be able to meet the collective volume requirements off all those lenders. Most brokers simply wouldn’t be able to complete that much business on their own.
Aggregators solve this problem by acting as an entity between the lenders and brokers. An aggregator will have several brokers working for them – perhaps hundreds – and will allow them to submit their home loan applications through them. The aggregator will in turn send the applications on to the lenders. This business model ensures that more than enough applications are sent to each lender each month to maintain the relationships. All the brokers working for the aggregator will therefore be able to offer products from all the lenders on the aggregator’s lending panel.
One of the more common business models that aggregators use is that of franchising. The franchisor can have up to several hundred franchisees working for them. As with all franchise arrangements, the broker will use the franchisor’s brand name and the franchisor will provide support and administration functions. It should be noted that while the franchise model is popular with mortgage brokers in Australia, not all aggregators are master franchises.
Because Mortgage Brokers receive their income by way of commissions awarded by lenders for successful home loan applications, it follows that aggregators receive a portion of the commissions for all loan applications put through them. Brokers therefore surrender part of their commission in return for the benefit of using an aggregator. Each franchisor will have their own individual fee structures, so not all brokers give up the same level of commissions.
In all, aggregators are a necessary part of the mortgage broking industry in Australia. By providing the ability to allow brokers to offer products from a selection of lenders, they help brokers maintain their independence and offer impartial advice.