ASIC's mortgage broker reference check says nothing about volume

A broker’s volume, conversion rate and ranking are self-reported until someone checks them, and the mortgage broker reference check ASIC requires won’t do it, because it covers five years of conduct and compliance. To verify production, do the arithmetic, see their own pay records, define conversion in writing, call the person they report to and set a scenario.

The bottom line: The ASIC protocol reference is the compliance floor, and it says nothing about what a broker settled. FinTalent’s advice to principals is to treat every volume and conversion figure as a claim until it has a definition, a document behind it and a referee who saw the work.

When we sent a client a broker’s conversion figures, our email said they were the broker’s own numbers, off their CV, and nothing we had verified. The operations manager came back with the right questions. Was there a way to verify the broker’s conversions? How many were in their team, and how did they rank against the rest? Their leads had arrived warmer than a cold broker enquiry, so how would their rate hold up in the client’s funnel? Every one of those can be answered before an offer goes out.

What does a mortgage broker reference check cover?

Since 1 October 2021, a licensee taking on a mortgage broker has had to seek a reference from the broker’s current or recent licensee under ASIC’s reference checking protocol, one of the Royal Commission reforms. The current version started on 20 August 2024 and has governed every reference since 1 March 2025. The referee has 10 business days to respond, or up to 30 if both sides agree, and the reference reaches back five years.

ASIC’s template sets the questions: compliance audit results, breach reports, any dishonesty, unprofessional conduct or gross incompetence, warnings or reprimands, and investigations still open. When we ran one on a client’s behalf, under their credit licence, every question past the background details was about conduct. None asked what the broker had settled.

Most brokers also work as credit representatives on someone else’s licence, and the ten largest aggregator groups alone had 17,748 individual reps at 1 July 2026, according to Padua WealthData’s read of the ASIC register. Unless the brokerage holds its own licence, the reference comes from an aggregator’s compliance team, who can tell you about audits and breaches and very little about how the broker works.

ASIC’s September advice update flagged licensees appointing advisers without the mandatory reference, and noted that the same requirement covers mortgage brokers. Do it every time, knowing it tells you whether a broker is safe to authorise and nothing about their volume.

How often are the numbers on a CV wrong?

In a StandOut Resume survey of more than 1,000 Australians, 42.5% admitted lying on a job application or in an interview at least once, one in five had lied about their work experience, and three-quarters of those who lied were never caught.

In broking, the bigger problem is a number nobody has defined. We learnt that one the awkward way. Asking an asset finance principal about conversion for a candidate, we passed on the rate at the candidate’s current business, around 20%, with no definition attached. The principal came straight back: “I think that depends on what the definition of ‘conversion’ is”. As they pointed out, 20% of leads to a settled contract would mean one deal from every five leads, including the people who can’t be contacted and the ones with bad credit.

A figure with no definition and no document behind it can be perfectly honest and still tell you nothing.

How do you check a broker’s settlement volume?

Do the arithmetic first

The MFAA’s State of Mortgage and Finance Broking report put 2025 residential settlements at $495.55 billion across 838,815 loans and 24,116 brokers. Spread evenly, that’s about $20.5 million a broker for the year, roughly $1.7 million a month, and a little under three loans a month at an average of about $591,000.

That average carries every part-timer and first-year broker, so a strong broker should clear it. A broker claiming $5 million a month is claiming about three times the average. It can be true. Check it first. Ask for the loan count too, because $5 million off three construction loans and $5 million off nine refinances are different jobs.

See their own pay records

Commission follows settlement, so a broker’s own commission or bonus statements and payslips are the closest thing to a receipt. Our salary guide uses the MFAA’s upfront range of 0.65% to 0.70%, or $6,500 to $7,000 per $1 million drawn before any split, and the broker earnings calculator runs the maths. Ask for them with every client name and loan number blacked out, and never ask for a client list or anything that belongs to their current business.

The loan-level data exists. Aggregator reporting records lender, broker, settlement date and amount against every loan. It sits in the business’s aggregator login, so it isn’t the candidate’s to hand over.

Ask where it came from

Ask them to split last year’s volume between referral partners, leads the business supplied and deals they found themselves. Our senior broker hiring guide covers what a vague answer tells you. In a lead-fed seat, what “leads provided” meant at their last business changes what every number after it is worth.

Ask what came back out

Settled volume and kept volume are different figures. The MFAA’s first industry measure put the median gross clawback at $11,442 per broker in 2025, up 16.5%, although that’s a median of five aggregators’ responses rather than of individual brokers. A broker writing heavy refinance volume should know what came back, and who wears the clawback belongs in the contract conversation, alongside the trail questions that stall experienced brokers.

Together, those four turn a number on a CV into one you can hold them to.

What should a conversion rate mean before you believe it?

The same 20% describes three different brokers, depending on where it’s measured to. This is the asset finance principal’s breakdown.

Lead temperature moves it again, which is why the operations manager wanted to know how a rate built on warm leads would travel. There’s no market benchmark to hold any of it against either, for the reasons in our guide to short of leads or short of conversion.

Get the definition in writing before the interview, then ask the broker to walk you through last month against it. If they can’t, you’ve learnt something about how they track their own work.

Who should you call for a performance reference?

The person who knows how a broker performs is the principal or sales manager they report to, and that call sits outside the protocol.

Timing cuts both ways. One principal we work with wanted to speak to a senior credit analyst’s current employer early in the process. From the candidate’s side, if they haven’t told their principal they’re looking, an early call can cost them their job before you’ve made an offer. Make the offer conditional on references and agree the timing with the candidate.

Then ask what a CV can’t answer. How did they rank against the team? What share of their deals came from leads the business supplied? What did they need from their principal to perform, and what should the next one do in the first ninety days? The last two turn the reference into an onboarding plan. The candidate is selling to you as much as you’re selling to them, and a broker confident in their numbers can bring the statement and the definitions to the first interview.

Should you test a broker with a scenario at interview?

Tenure proves less than principals hope, which is the case for one. A principal told us on a discovery call: “Sometimes they’ve done five years experience, can’t even get a loan out in, in a week.” A training and compliance manager we spoke to asked every broker in one of their training sessions to name the three elements of responsible lending, and none of them could. The three head ASIC’s list of responsible lending obligations: reasonable inquiries into the client’s requirements, objectives and financial situation, reasonable steps to verify that situation, and a preliminary assessment that the loan is not unsuitable.

An investor-lending client passed on a candidate with relevant industry experience, because the candidate’s approach didn’t match how the business structures finance for property investors and their answers were vague and short on specific deals they had taken through to settlement. The experience on their CV didn’t carry them past the interview, which is why hiring on experience alone catches principals out.

Joe runs every search himself. When a sales coach advising one of our clients asked whether candidates for a loan writer seat were set scenarios to test capacity and competency, Joe sent three back the next morning: a PAYG purchase, a self-employed refinance, and self-employed medical professionals releasing equity to buy commercial property. The first asks for a serviceability calculation, a funds-to-complete table and a written strategy, timed by the candidate.

Set a file from your own pipeline, stripped of client detail, and push back on the answer once. Our mortgage broker hiring guide covers what to look for when you do.

What does ASIC’s review of broker oversight mean if you’re hiring?

ASIC’s 2026-27 priorities letter to bank boards flags a review of how lenders use referrers, pay remuneration and oversee brokers, due to start in the third quarter of the 2026-27 financial year. It comes amid a run of mortgage fraud cases, including AUSTRAC’s Operation Claw, where analysis of 2,000 customers linked to 20 loan referrers, brokers, accountants and lawyers among them, pointed to potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent loans, as the AFR reported. The review is of lenders’ controls.

The risk already sits with the principal. A private-lending principal told us why they are careful not to expand too quickly: “if brokers are doing the wrong thing, then ASIC can come down on us and then we can be destroyed.” The principal has fired people for cutting corners more than once.

For a principal hiring, it changes one question. Where last year’s volume came from used to be about whether the pipeline would follow the broker. Now it’s also about whose referrals they were and how the income on those files was verified, because the next file goes through your licence or your aggregator’s.