The average broker is accredited with 23 lenders and settles with 8. Major bank net interest margins have more than halved since 1990 — and broker growth is part of that story.
The competition chapter of Deloitte's 2025 report is the strongest evidence yet that the broker channel changes market structure, not just individual outcomes.
Choice, quantified
In 2023-24, surveyed brokers were accredited with 23 lenders on average through their aggregator, and settled loans with 8 different lenders. Beyond that, aggregator panels can reach up to 65 lenders; the average aggregator panel holds 45, including 18 non-Big 4 banks and 23 non-bank lenders. A typical broker panel breaks down as 4 Big 4 banks, 10 other banks, 3 mutuals, 4 specialist lenders, 1 business lender and 1 white label.
Where broker loans actually go
38% of brokers' loan portfolios sit with banks outside the Big 4 and their sub-brands, despite the Big 4 representing about 75% of the market. That gap is the competition effect in a single statistic: the broker channel routes a disproportionate share of lending to challengers.
- Number of banks active in Australia: from 50 in 2004 to around 91 in 2024
- Major bank net interest margins: from 4.7% in 1990 to about 2.0% in 2024
- ADI return on equity: from roughly 15% in the early 2000s to around 11-12% today
- Broker share of new residential loans: 60.1% (Sep quarter 2020), 71.7% (2022), 74.6% (2024)
"It may be easier for a new lender to attract customers by offering competitive rates on a broker's panel than by establishing physical branches."
Why lenders keep using the channel
Deloitte identifies a variable-cost logic. The broker channel scales up and down without the fixed overhead of branches and salaried lending staff, which matters most to smaller lenders that cannot carry a fixed cost base through low-origination periods. Brokers also pre-qualify and educate applicants, reducing wasted lender assessment effort, and act as a first screen for document fraud.
Deloitte is careful with causation: broker growth is correlated with reductions in mortgage interest rates and sits alongside digitisation, regulatory change and cheaper wholesale funding as contributing factors. Read together, the direction is consistent.
Source: Deloitte Access Economics, The Value of Mortgage and Finance Broking 2025, prepared for the MFAA (February 2025); APRA and RBA data (2024).