A mortgage broker franchise is a licensed broking office that trades under an established group brand while you run the branch day to day. You commit to an initial fee plus ongoing payments to the franchisor, and the franchisor supplies the name, the systems, training, lender accreditation arrangements and compliance oversight that the branch needs to open its doors.
The decision deserves harder arithmetic than most franchise sales conversations encourage. Compare every fee and the commission split against what an independent practice would earn, check the panel you would actually receive against the lenders you currently write with, and weigh the whole proposition against our guide to the aggregator choice. The rest of this page covers the Australian licensing position first. It then moves through the main franchise players, the money and the agreement before closing on the operational realities once you have signed.
Eliminate hours of manual data crunching and focus on building relationships with new clients.
Track My Trail makes it easy for brokers to keep track of lost & gained trail, discover clients who have paid off big chunks of their loans, and identify your most profitable clients.
Get Track My Trail for free today – no credit card required.
Licensing responsibility sits with the broker, not the logo
Franchise structure does not soften credit law. The group holds an Australian Credit Licence and appoints you as its authorised credit representative, or you operate under your own licence inside the network, and either way the rules that bind all mortgage brokers apply to franchise branches in full. Your name needs to appear on the ASIC registers before you advise a single client.
The money flows from the lender to the brokerage in most cases, so clients rarely pay you directly for finding their loan. Brokers remain individually accountable for acting in each borrower’s best interests even when the branch follows head office process. Within the franchise, a share of that lender-paid commission is retained by the group as royalty before anything reaches you, which makes the stated percentage worth knowing precisely rather than roughly.
Which Australian groups actually franchise
Some of the country’s best-known broking brands recruit this way. Mortgage Choice operates as a franchise network owned by REA Group, and Aussie runs branded stores under Lendi Group following the combination of the two businesses. Ownership structures, lender panels and fee schedules change over time, so treat any article, including this one, as orientation rather than a current fact sheet.
Australian franchising runs under the Franchising Code of Conduct, and the code applying to agreements entered into, renewed or transferred on or after 1 April 2025 carries further obligations from 1 November 2025. Every franchisor covered by the code must publish a profile on the free Franchise Disclosure Register and update it each year. Search that register, and confirm the group’s authorisation on ASIC’s professional registers, before you spend an evening comparing brochures.
Setting up your branch
Premises matter more in broking than franchise recruiters sometimes admit. Choose a location where your intended borrowers actually live and work, check how many competitors already operate within that catchment, and expect the fit-out to meet whatever brand standards the franchisor specifies. Staffing comes next if you plan to delegate processing or reception from the start.
Technology arrives preselected. The franchisor licenses its own workflow platform, and a capable customer relationship management system sits at the centre of it, keeping referral partners, applications and follow-ups visible in one place. Test the tools during due diligence rather than trusting screenshots, because switching platforms later means rebuilding your records somewhere else.
Fees, royalties and the agreement
Three kinds of payment recur in this market: an upfront fee covering onboarding and setup, an ongoing royalty usually calculated as a share of commission income, and a marketing levy that funds brand campaigns. Typical percentages vary between groups and between agreements, and they change over time, so take the actual figures from the group’s current disclosure document instead of any secondary source.
Have you checked your trail book for missing trail?
Track My Trail makes it easy for brokers to keep track of lost & gained trail, discover clients who have paid off big chunks of their loans, and identify your most profitable clients.
Get Track My Trail for free today - no credit card required.
Budgeting beyond the headline fees protects your cash flow during the settlement lag that new branches face. Insurance, professional registrations, office outgoings and software add-ons arrive regardless of your revenue in month three. Read the agreement itself for term length, termination rights, territory definitions, database ownership and the post-exit restraint, then have a lawyer who handles franchise contracts mark up the restraint before you pay any deposit.
Running loans and service once you are open
Daily work looks like any other broking week: consultations, structuring, lodgement and follow-up. Compliance checks, record keeping and loan processing timelines stay with your branch no matter which head-office system manages the paperwork. The franchisor reduces administrative load; it does not answer lender queries for you.
Reputation compounds fastest at local level. Customer service failures circulate quickly through a suburb’s network of buyers and referrers, while consistent turnarounds and clear communication are what build client loyalty that no advertising levy reproduces. Build both from the first file onward, because early reviews shape the enquiries your territory produces later.
Training, marketing and growing inside the network
Induction programmes cover the group’s systems, lending panel and compliance routines. Structured professional development continues through industry updates and product refreshers. Ask people already operating branches whether the promised support arrived. Recruitment material describes the network at its best; current franchisees describe its ordinary weeks.
Marketing help covers national campaigns funded by the levy plus templates for local promotion around digital marketing strategies. Establish which spend is compulsory and which is optional, and who owns the client database if you leave. Where growth interests you, some groups permit additional offices once the first branch trades soundly, with the conditions written into the same agreement.
Limits to price in before you sign
Royalties take their share of every settlement across the life of the agreement, and a locked panel can exclude a lender whose product suits a particular client. Restraint clauses may limit where and how you can broker after exiting. Sales targets set centrally can also sit awkwardly with seasonal demand in your specific catchment, so query the assumptions behind any projected territory figures.
If a franchise proposal includes tools described as artificial intelligence, ask what data they use, who checks their output and whether the cost sits inside the royalty or as an add-on. Test the current tools during due diligence rather than relying on a technology roadmap.
If the proposition survives your arithmetic, keep the next actions sequenced. Request the current disclosure document first, then read the register profile, confirm the licence appointment details in writing, model two years of net income after every recurring fee, and finally have a franchise-literate lawyer review the exit and restraint terms.
Signing because the brand feels familiar, without modelling what lands in your account each month, is the most expensive mistake available in this market. Complete the modelling first and every conversation afterwards starts from numbers rather than hope.
