What brokers told us: the two problems that came up in every conversation
By Keegan Opperman Published
In the week of 9 November 2026, I spoke with eight local mortgage brokers about the biggest problems in their businesses. All eight told me the same thing: their two biggest problems were chasing documents and keeping clients after settlement.
Broker Twin had not yet opened to a single brokerage, and I wanted to hear from brokers before it did.
This note sets out the two problems, what the published figures say about each, and why I think the two are really one.
Why is chasing documents such a problem?
The work itself is not hard. A loan application needs payslips, bank statements, identification and a handful of other papers, and the client has to supply them. The trouble is everything around the request. Clients send the wrong document, or half of it, or a photo too dark to read. Then they go quiet, and the broker has to ask again.
Brokers are not alone in saying this. A feature that the aggregator AFG placed in The Adviser names four pain points in document collection: tailoring the request for each client, client delays and inaccurate submissions, the time spent following up, and the difficulty of handing the job to someone else.
None of that is advice, and none of it needs a credit licence. It is repetitive, manual work, and it lands on the person whose time is worth the most.
Why is keeping clients after settlement hard?
The second problem starts the day a loan settles. The broker moves on to the next application, because that is where the deadline is. The settled client hears from them when there is time, and there is rarely time.
The published figures show what that costs.
- Clawback is rising. A clawback is commission a lender takes back when a loan is repaid or refinanced soon after it settles, usually within the first two years. The MFAA’s State of Mortgage and Finance Broking Report 2026 put the median clawback at $11,442 per broker in 2025, up 16.5% on the year before (Australian Broker).
- Clients do review their loans. In the MFAA’s August 2026 survey of 588 brokers, 96% had helped a client secure a discount from their existing lender in the previous six months, and 95% had helped a client refinance to a new lender (MFAA). The question for a broker is whether the client calls them first.
- There are more brokers to call. The same MFAA report counted 24,116 brokers in 2025, up 9.1% in a year. That is one broker for every 904 Australian adults, compared with one for every 969 the year before.
Why are the two problems really one?
Both come from the same shortage, which is hours. Nobody becomes a broker to chase paperwork. They do it to help people through the biggest financial commitment of their lives. But the repetitive, manual work keeps taking the hours that belong to their clients, before settlement and after it.
A broker who spends the afternoon asking for a missing bank statement is not calling the client whose fixed term ends next month. The first job has a deadline and the second does not, so the second one waits.
What are we doing about it?
We are building Broker Twin to hand that work to an AI employee. It requests each document, checks what comes back and asks again for anything that is missing. After settlement it keeps watch over the loan book and takes on the routine work of staying organised, so the broker knows who to call and has the time to make the call.
It never gives advice to a client. The advice stays where it belongs, with the broker.
A lot of people worry that AI will take the human touch out of broking. I think the opposite is true. Take the manual work away, and there is more time for the human touch.
What would you add?
If you are a broker and these two problems sound familiar, I would like to hear how they show up in your week. If your biggest problem is a different one, I would like to hear that even more. You can send me a message through this site.
If you would like to see an AI employee take on this work, every brokerage starts with a 30-day free trial.