What is a mortgage aggregator? A broker's guide.

A mortgage aggregator is the company that sits between a mortgage broker and the lenders. It holds the lender accreditations, provides the technology brokers use to lodge loans, manages compliance under an Australian Credit Licence, and passes lender commissions through to the broker. In Australia, the overwhelming majority of brokers operate under an aggregator — because doing it alone means building all of that infrastructure yourself.

Put simply: the lender provides the loan, the broker advises the client, and the aggregator is the operating layer that makes it possible for the two to connect at scale.

What does a mortgage aggregator actually do?

Behind that one-line definition sit four distinct jobs. A good aggregator delivers all four; the difference between aggregators is largely how they deliver them and what they charge for it.

• Lender panel & accreditation: the aggregator maintains relationships and accreditations with dozens of lenders, so a broker can place a client with any of them without negotiating each relationship individually.
• Technology & lodgement: a CRM, loan-application tools and lodgement gateways that submit deals electronically to lenders. This is where you spend most of your working day.
• Licensing & compliance: brokers operate either under their own Australian Credit Licence or as a credit representative of the aggregator's. The aggregator provides the compliance framework, audits and regulatory reporting.
• Commission processing: lenders pay commissions to the aggregator, which reconciles and passes them to the broker — minus any split the aggregator takes.

How do mortgage aggregators charge brokers?

This is where the models diverge sharply — and where it pays to understand exactly what you're signing up for.

The commission-split model

The traditional approach: the aggregator keeps a percentage of your upfront and trail commissions — commonly between 10% and 20% — often alongside a monthly fee, a separate CRM subscription and lender marketing levies. The more you write, the more the aggregator earns. It's the dominant model, and for decades it was the only one.

The flat-fee model

A newer approach: the aggregator charges a fixed monthly subscription and takes no commission split. ExBanqi is built on this model — a flat $990/month + GST, with 100% of upfront and trail retained by the broker. The fee is the same whether you write $2M or $200M a year. For established brokers, this is typically far cheaper; we break down the exact numbers in our flat-fee vs commission-split analysis.

Do brokers have to use an aggregator?

In theory, no — a broker could hold their own credit licence and seek direct lender accreditations. In practice, almost nobody does. The accreditation relationships, the technology, the compliance overhead and the commission administration are substantial to build and maintain alone. An aggregator provides all of it as shared infrastructure, which is why the model exists in the first place.

Aggregator vs lender vs broker: who does what?

These three roles are easy to confuse. Here's the clean distinction:

• The lender provides and funds the loan (a bank or non-bank lender).
• The broker advises the client and recommends a suitable product.
• The aggregator gives the broker accreditation, technology and licensing to do that across many lenders — it doesn't lend, and it doesn't advise clients.

How to choose a mortgage aggregator

Once you understand the four jobs, choosing comes down to comparing how each aggregator handles them — and what it costs you. The questions worth asking:

• How am I charged — split or flat fee? Model the actual dollar cost at your volume, not just the headline percentage.
• How big and open is the lender panel? Look for breadth and the absence of preferred-lender pressure.
• Is the CRM included, and is it good? Technology you'll use every day shouldn't be a costly add-on.
• Is there lock-in? A month-to-month relationship keeps the aggregator accountable.
• What does support actually look like? Direct access beats a ticket queue.

For a side-by-side view, see ExBanqi vs the traditional aggregation model.

The bottom line

A mortgage aggregator is the infrastructure layer that lets brokers operate — lender access, technology, licensing and commission processing in one place. Every aggregator provides that. The real decision is the economics: whether you hand over a percentage of everything you earn, forever, or pay a flat fee and keep the rest. For a serious, growing broker, that single choice is worth tens of thousands of dollars a year.