Aggregator Ranks Shrink Again: What the First ASIC-Derived Broker Movements Report Tells You

For the second consecutive quarter, more brokers left Australia’s ten largest aggregator groups than joined them. New data drawn from ASIC’s own credit representative registers shows combined headcount across the top ten falling from 17,854 to 17,748 between 1 April and 1 July 2026, with 959 resignations against 853 appointments. Finsure absorbed the steepest fall. The report’s authors say Q3 is the quarter that will tell us whether this is noise or a trend.

In this article

• The Headline Number: 17,854 to 17,748
• Where the Data Comes From — and Why That Matters
• Finsure’s 152: The Steepest Fall in the Top Ten
• The Hai Money Context — and the Link the Report Doesn’t Draw
• Who Grew: Loan Market, Connective and SFG
• Astute’s Contraction and the Licence Wind-Down
• What the Switching Data Actually Shows
• What This Means for Brokers
• Reviewing Your Aggregator: A Broker’s Checklist
• The Bottom Line

The Headline Number: 17,854 to 17,748

The inaugural Mortgage Broker Movements Report, produced by WealthX in partnership with Padua WealthData, tracks credit representative movements between Australia’s ten largest aggregators, including their sub-aggregator brands.

Across the top ten in the June quarter, gross resignations of 959 outpaced 853 appointments. Net effect: 106 fewer credit representatives, and a second consecutive quarter in which the industry’s largest groups collectively shrank.

Two consecutive quarters is not a trend, but it is no longer a single data point either. The report’s authors flag Q3 2026 as the one to watch for signs of whether the softening is temporary or the start of something longer.

Where the Data Comes From — and Why That Matters

This is the part brokers should pay attention to. The report is built from ASIC’s Credit Licence and Credit Representative datasets — the regulator’s own registers — rather than from aggregator-supplied figures.

Historically, comparing aggregator scale meant comparing marketing claims. Different groups counted differently: some included administrative staff, some counted licensees rather than active writers, some quoted peak numbers rather than current ones. A registry-derived dataset removes most of that ambiguity.

For a broker evaluating an aggregator, this is the first genuinely like-for-like comparison available. It is worth understanding its limits too: a credit representative registration is not the same as an actively writing broker, and the register lags real-world movement by the time it takes to process appointments and resignations.

Finsure’s 152: The Steepest Fall in the Top Ten

Finsure recorded 82 appointments against 234 resignations over the quarter, a net loss of 152 credit representatives, taking headcount from 2,776 to 2,624. That is the largest absolute decline of any top-ten licensee controller.

Of those departures, the report logged ten brokers moving directly to rival aggregators — six to Loan Market Group and four to Connective Credit Services. The remaining resignations did not show up as transfers to another top-ten group, which means they either left the industry, moved to a smaller aggregator outside the top ten, or moved to their own licence.

That distinction matters. A broker moving from Finsure to Connective is a competitive story. A broker deregistering entirely is an industry story.

The Hai Money Context — and the Link the Report Doesn’t Draw

Finsure’s quarter played out against a complicated compliance backdrop, and it is worth setting out carefully.

In late April 2026, Finsure terminated its contract with sub-aggregator Hai Money — a network holding its own credit licence but relying on Finsure’s lender panel, including CBA and ANZ, for an estimated 210 brokers. The termination followed the December 2025 arrest of Andrew W. Hu, a former banker writing loans as a broker under Hai Money’s licence, alleged to have led a criminal network. Hu’s arrest triggered an internal Hai Money investigation into 14 of its brokers, who were subsequently removed.

Hai Money launched legal action over the termination. By mid-May the Supreme Court had found Finsure’s termination arguably invalid, though the parties later reached a resolution under which the termination stood.

The WealthX report itself draws no link between Finsure’s compliance issues and its net broker decline, and neither should we. The events are concurrent, not demonstrably causal. But any broker reading the headline number without the context is missing that a single sub-aggregation arrangement involving roughly 210 brokers unwound inside the same period.

Who Grew: Loan Market, Connective and SFG

The contraction was not universal.

• Loan Market Group retained top spot by headcount, ending at 3,763 reps across its six-licensee footprint — a net gain of 27.
• Connective was the strongest organic grower in absolute terms, adding a net 68 to reach 3,402, including a net inbound gain of six from direct broker transfers.
• SFG led on percentage change at +3.1 per cent, ahead of Connective (+2 per cent) and Mortgage Choice (+1.9 per cent).
• Mortgage Choice sat sixth overall at 1,154 reps, including 316 under its Smartline licensee.

The pattern worth noting: the groups that grew did so modestly and organically. Nobody added 150 brokers. In a quarter where the sector contracted, holding flat was a decent result.

Astute’s Contraction and the Licence Wind-Down

Astute Financial Management posted the other significant decline, down a net 65 reps — a 15 per cent contraction, the largest relative fall in the top ten, magnified by its smaller starting base.

Most of that was structural rather than competitive: the wind-down of its Centrepoint Alliance Lending licence, which fell from 65 reps to just seven. This is a useful reminder that headline movements in this data can reflect corporate restructuring as much as broker sentiment. Read the licence-level detail before drawing conclusions about any group’s appeal.

What the Switching Data Actually Shows

The direct transfer numbers are strikingly small. Ten brokers moved from Finsure to rivals. Connective’s net inbound gain from direct transfers was six.

Against 959 total resignations, direct aggregator-to-aggregator switching accounts for a tiny fraction of movement. The dominant story is not brokers shopping between groups — it is brokers exiting the registers of the largest groups altogether.

That points to something other than aggregator competition: brokers retiring, consolidating into smaller partnerships, moving to their own licence, or leaving the industry. In a market where lodgement volumes have softened and compliance overhead keeps rising, none of those explanations would be surprising.

What This Means for Brokers

Fewer competitors is not automatically good news. A shrinking registered broker population in a market with record broker market share means the remaining brokers are carrying more volume each. That is an opportunity if you have capacity and a warning if you do not.

Your aggregator’s scale is now checkable. If you are being sold on the size of a group’s network, that claim is now independently verifiable against a registry-derived dataset rather than taken on trust.

Sub-aggregation carries concentration risk. The Hai Money episode showed how quickly a sub-aggregation arrangement can unwind and how exposed brokers are when their lender panel access depends on a contract they are not party to. If you sit under a sub-aggregator, you should know exactly what happens to your accreditations if that agreement ends.

Recruitment is getting harder for everyone. With appointments trailing resignations sector-wide, brokerages planning to grow by hiring experienced writers are fishing in a shrinking pool. Building capacity internally — parabrokers, loan administrators, support staff — may be the more reliable path.

Reviewing Your Aggregator: A Broker’s Checklist

If this data has you reassessing, work through these before moving:

1. Check the licence structure, not just the brand. Several top-ten groups operate multiple licensees. Know which one you would actually sit under.
2. Map your accreditations. Which lender accreditations transfer, which need re-application, and how long is the gap?
3. Understand your trail on exit. What happens to your existing trail book if you leave — does it follow you, and on what terms?
4. Test the technology honestly. Ask for a live walkthrough on a real file type you write, not a demo environment.
5. Ask about compliance support depth. With ASIC’s best interests duty review reporting later this year, the quality of your aggregator’s compliance function matters more than its CRM.
6. Verify the headcount claim. You now have a registry-based source to check it against.

The Bottom Line

Two consecutive quarters of contraction across the largest aggregator groups, with resignations running ahead of appointments and direct switching accounting for almost none of the movement, suggests the story is about brokers leaving the top ten’s registers rather than choosing between them.

Finsure’s 152 will get the attention, and its compliance backdrop makes it the most quotable number in the report. But the more consequential figure is the sector-wide one: 106 fewer credit representatives across the ten biggest groups, in a market where broker market share is at a record high. Demand is not the constraint. Supply is starting to look like one.

What to watch: the Q3 2026 report. A third straight quarterly decline would move this from a soft patch to a structural question about how the industry replaces the brokers it is losing.

Sources: Mortgage Professional Australia — “Finsure sheds brokers as aggregator ranks contract in June quarter” (21 July 2026); The Adviser — “New independent report reveals aggregator movements”; Mortgage Broker Movements Q2 2026 report, WealthX and Padua WealthData, derived from ASIC Credit Licence and Credit Representative datasets.

Disclaimer: This article is for general information and professional development purposes only. It does not constitute legal, compliance, or financial advice. Brokers should consult their aggregator’s compliance team and, where required, seek independent legal advice regarding their obligations under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 and ASIC’s responsible lending guidelines.