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The Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia’s (MFAA) Global Insights Report 2026 examined broking in the US, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands and Germany, comparing how each market approaches different aspects of the broker channel, including technological development.
The report found that while every market was investing in technology to improve the lending journey, Australia’s technology ecosystem stood out for its “maturity”.
“Unlike many international markets, Australia has achieved a high level of standardisation and digital connectivity throughout the mortgage application process,” the report said.
“The widespread use of centralised lodgement platforms and industry standards has significantly reduced operational friction and improved efficiency for brokers, lenders and consumers.
“Several international stakeholders expressed surprise at the degree of digital integration that exists within the Australian broker channel.”
It added: “While there is often a perception that innovation occurs elsewhere first, several international stakeholders identified aspects of the Australian broker ecosystem as leading practice.”
Open banking varies across jurisdictions
Australia’s ongoing open banking development, underpinned by the Consumer Data Right (CDR), distinguished itself from other countries due to its potential application in mortgage origination and refinancing, the report noted.
Open banking adoption has also been gaining traction in Australia in recent years.
NextGen, which owns open banking provider Frollo and its broker-focused solution Frollo for Brokers, said almost 120,000 consumers shared their financial data with mortgage brokers through its platform during the last financial year, with open banking now used in close to one in 10 broker-originated home loan applications.
Non-bank lenders officially entered the CDR regime on 13 July 2026, with dozens publishing residential mortgage Product Reference Data during the first month.
However, as with the bank rollout, there has been a gap between overall market participation and the availability of usable product information, with missing data fields affecting the initial rollout.
Brokers themselves have told Broker Daily that open banking adoption remains fragmented, with client hesitation and poorly streamlined processes among the key obstacles.
In contrast, the MFAA’s report found that the United Kingdom “remains one of the most developed open banking markets globally”, with its framework primarily focused on payments and payment account data.
Launched in 2018 under a regulatory framework initiated by the Competition and Markets Authority, the UK ecosystem has since grown to more than 11 million active users and processed more than 1 billion payments.
Meanwhile, Canada is continuing to develop its framework following legislative delays, while the United States has largely adopted “a market-led approach, with innovation driven by private sector participants rather than a government-mandated framework”.
Data is key
The report also found that strong data infrastructure underpinned many of the key themes emerging from the research.
“The research highlighted a broader shift towards data-driven decision making across the mortgage ecosystem.
“Access to high-quality data is increasingly viewed as a competitive advantage, supporting better customer experiences, more efficient processes and improved risk management.”
AI is one area where the quality and availability of data could prove critical.
With lenders investing billions of dollars in AI, questions have been raised about whether their data systems can keep pace.
According to the latest Connected Intelligence Report from credit reporting bureau Experian, based on responses from 102 senior decision makers in Australia’s lending market, almost three-quarters of respondents (72 per cent) are using agentic artificial intelligence to assist underwriters with recommendations or decision support.
However, just 3 per cent of respondents said their data was fully AI-ready, while 67 per cent said their data was either not ready or only partially ready to support AI-driven decisioning.
Beyond data quality, the MFAA report identified industry-wide infrastructure as another potential opportunity, particularly for innovations such as digital identity verification, which “continues to be a source of friction across many mortgage processes globally”.
In Australia, a Senate committee has recommended including Australian Taxation Office data in open banking to help verify income and other financial information securely.
The report also pointed to the Netherlands’ Hypotheken Data Network (HDN) as a successful example of how shared industry infrastructure can help move the sector forward.
Established as a shared industry platform, HDN facilitates standardised data exchange between brokers, lenders and other market participants involved in the mortgage process.
By reducing duplicated information, improving data quality and speeding up processing, the platform also reduces the administrative burden on brokers.
The report said: “While Australia’s lending ecosystem differs considerably, the case study highlights how shared infrastructure can support productivity, efficiency and scalability across an entire industry rather than benefiting individual organisations alone.”
AI adoption puts human judgement in the picture
The report found that across the board, AI was seen as strengthening broker advice and human interaction rather than cutting brokers out of the journey.
Across the six markets examined, industry participants were exploring AI for tasks such as document processing, workflow automation, customer service, fraud detection and compliance monitoring. Its potential to reduce administrative workloads and improve productivity could give brokers more time to focus on customers, rather than replace the need for their expertise.
While the technology’s long-term impact on mortgage distribution remains uncertain, the report said the “emerging view appears to be that AI will remove administrative tasks and improve efficiency while increasing the relative importance of trusted advice and human relationships”.
AI developments within the broker channel are already gathering momentum.
Most recently, Loan Market Group unveiled a new AI integration for its asset finance CRM, allowing brokers to use AI bots to create applications, retrieve client histories, generate pipeline reports and trigger automations.
Meanwhile, Mortgage Choice also unveiled a bolstered suite of AI tools and tech upgrades aimed at driving broker efficiency, reducing manual administration and modernising consumer engagement platforms.
Fraud and scams require industry-wide action
Fraud, scams and cyber threats were common challenges across all five markets examined, with the report warning that increasingly sophisticated risks would require greater industry-wide cooperation.
While traditional methods such as income manipulation and document falsification remained prevalent, the report said more sophisticated threats involving synthetic identities, organised criminal networks and digitally altered documents were becoming increasingly common.
Scams were also evolving, with impersonation, payment redirection, business email compromise and social engineering identified as growing threats during property transactions.
The report said these risks could involve multiple parties, including brokers, lenders, accountants, lawyers, conveyancers, real estate agents and technology providers.
Indeed, Australia has recently seen a string of high-profile fraud cases linked to AI, while one in seven Australians experienced a scam in 2024–25.
It said: “Importantly, many stakeholders noted that fraud is becoming harder to detect through traditional controls alone. As a result, greater emphasis is being placed on data sharing, behavioural analytics and collaborative intelligence frameworks.
“The international experience suggests that prevention efforts will become increasingly dependent on collaboration across lenders, aggregators, brokers, regulators and other participants within the lending ecosystem.”
[Related: What the Australian broker industry can learn from overseas markets]
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