The Broker Times · Aggregator Data
The September Quarter Aggregator Count — and What It Leaves Out
A credit representative count is a licensing record, not a headcount of brokers. Here is what the latest quarter reports, and why two of the aggregators in the table dispute their own line.
Year-to-date movement, as reported
Bar length shows reported credit reps at 1 October 2026. The figure beside it is the reported change since January — except for LMG, whose year-to-date figure was not reported, so its quarterly change is shown and labelled.
What a credit rep count sees — and what it misses
The report is built from ASIC credit licence and credit representative datasets.
In the count
- Brokers authorised as credit representatives under an aggregator-held licence
- The date each authorisation commenced and ceased
- Authorisations across sub-aggregator brands inside the same controller group
Outside the count
- Brokers who hold their own Australian Credit Licence and use an aggregator for services and panel access
- Why an authorisation ceased — a resignation, a licensing change and a compliance exit all read the same
- Settlement volume, revenue, profitability or service quality
Where the figures are disputed
The broker takeaway
A credit representative count tracks licensing authorisations, not loyalty, volume or value. Use it as one recruitment signal among several — then review your own aggregator on panel fit, turnaround, compliance support and total cost, which is where the commercial outcome actually sits.
Sources: WealthX credit representative report prepared with Padua WealthData, from ASIC credit licence and credit representative datasets, as reported by The Adviser, 8 October 2026; company figures as attributed to LMG and Lendi Group; ASIC Credit Representative Register dataset description, data.gov.au. Figures are as reported and, where disputed, are attributed to the party stating them.
Connective Added 206 Credit Reps This Year While Finsure Lost 107. Two Aggregators in the Table Say the Count Misses Brokers on Their Own Licence
The September quarter aggregator numbers are out, and LMG and Lendi Group have both put different figures on their own line. The register the data comes from explains how all of them can be accurate — and why headcount is the wrong thing to judge an aggregator on.
In this article
Every quarter a report lands that ranks Australia’s aggregators by how many credit representatives sit under their licence, and every quarter brokers read it as a scoreboard. The September quarter figures say Connective has added 206 credit reps since January, while Finsure has shed 107 and Lendi Group Distribution 88.
What makes this one worth a closer look is not the ranking. It is that two of the aggregators named in the table have publicly put different numbers on their own line — and both they and the report can be accurate at the same time, because of what the underlying register was built to record.
If you are weighing an aggregator move, renegotiating a split, or simply trying to read the market you compete in, the gap between “credit representatives authorised under a licence” and “brokers writing loans” is the single most useful thing to understand about this data. It is also where most of the commentary around it goes wrong.
What the report says
The figures come from a WealthX credit representative report prepared with Padua WealthData, covering 1 July to 1 October 2026, and were reported by The Adviser on 8 October. WealthX states on its own website that these reports are prepared from ASIC credit licence and credit representative datasets, and that they track the movement of credit representatives across the top licensee controllers in Australia.
| Aggregator | Reps | Quarter | Since Jan |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMG | 3,765 | +2 | — |
| Connective | 3,465 | +63 | +206 (6.3%) |
| Finsure | 2,615 | −9 | −107 (3.9%) |
| AFG | 2,417 | +21 | +48 |
| Lendi Group Distribution | 1,175 | −10 | −88 (7%) |
| Mortgage Choice | 1,138 | −16 | +3 |
| SFG | 977 | +17 | +88 (9.9%) |
| Outsource Financial | 976 | +9 | −3 |
| Yellow Brick Road Group | 932 | +4 | +13 |
The top ten controllers account for 17,833 representatives, up 97 over the quarter. Across all 34 aggregators covered, the report counts 19,929 credit representatives, up 113 over the quarter and up 99 since January.
Those last two numbers are worth sitting with. If nine months produced a net gain of 99 and the September quarter alone produced 113, then on the reported figures the first half of 2026 was net negative by roughly 14. Nine months of movement across the entire counted channel comes to about half a per cent. Whatever is happening between aggregators, the pool they are all recruiting from is close to flat — which makes most of the movement in that table a transfer, not an expansion.
Outside the top ten, the report has Viking Asset Aggregation up 22 (14.4%) and Fintelligence up 21 (11.1%), with National Mortgage Brokers down 21 (6.8%) and Beagle Finance down 19 (5.6%).
WealthX founder and chief executive Clint Howen told The Adviser that “Loan Market Group growth is slowing, yes,” and that “Connective is growing at a huge rate.”
This is not a one-quarter pattern either. WealthX’s published summary of its June quarter report, covering 1 April to 1 July 2026, describes the same shape: Loan Market Group first by size, Connective with the strongest organic growth, Finsure with the steepest decline, and resignations outpacing appointments across the top ten.
What the register actually counts
Here is the part that should change how you read the table.
The ASIC Credit Representative Register is a weekly snapshot. ASIC’s own published dataset description says it has been updated each Thursday since 20 March 2025, having previously been monthly. For each credit representative it records the representative number and name, the credit licensee number they are authorised under, an ABN or ACN where applicable, the date the authorisation commenced and the date it ceased, principal business locality, state and postcode, an EDRS code, and the authorisations and cross endorsements held.
Read that list again and notice what is not on it. There is no settlement volume. No revenue. No book size. No average loan size, no conversion rate, no turnaround time. And no indication of why an authorisation ended.
More fundamentally: it records authorisations under a licence. It does not record brokers.
Those are genuinely different populations, because a broker in Australia can work under one of two licensing arrangements. They can operate as a credit representative authorised under their aggregator’s Australian Credit Licence, in which case they appear on the register against that licensee. Or they can hold their own ACL and still use an aggregator for systems, services and lender panel access — in which case they do not appear as that aggregator’s credit representative at all.
The practical consequence: a broker who converts from credit representative to their own licence vanishes from an aggregator’s count while remaining, commercially, exactly where they were. A brokerage that grows by adding three brokers under its own ACL adds nothing to its aggregator’s line in that table. Published aggregator member information makes the same point from the other direction — that moving between the two arrangements changes your licensing arrangement, not your aggregator, and that panel access and commission models do not depend on which one you hold.
Why two aggregators dispute their own numbers
That mechanism sits behind both of this quarter’s disputes.
Rob Thomas, national director of LMG residential, told The Adviser that “the data in this WealthX report doesn’t capture the full picture.” LMG’s position is that it onboarded 143 brokers under aggregator-owned credit licences during the quarter for a net increase of 55, and welcomed 244 representatives once all credit licensees are counted — against the report’s net gain of two.
Aaron Hockey, Lendi Group’s general manager of network development and strategic partnerships, said “Lendi Group’s broker network is strong.” Lendi puts its credit representative count at 1,285 at 1 October against 1,341 in January — a fall of 56 rather than 88 — and says its broker headcount rose by seven over the quarter.
Look closely at the Lendi numbers. The report’s base is 1,175; Lendi’s is 1,285. That is a 110-representative difference in the starting figure, before anyone argues about the direction of travel. Two parties producing numbers 110 apart on the same question are not disagreeing about arithmetic. They are counting different populations.
These are the companies’ own statements about their own networks, and The Broker Times has not independently verified them. But methodologically the objections are coherent rather than merely defensive. The report describes itself as tracking individuals across controller groups, including sub-aggregator brands, while excluding credit licence holders operating under an aggregator. If a meaningful share of an aggregator’s growth arrives under its brokers’ own licences, a register-derived count will understate it — which is precisely what both aggregators are claiming.
Howen also attributed part of Finsure’s decline to tighter compliance screening at that aggregator. That is his assessment, not a finding by anyone, and a network that offboards representatives after tightening its standards is doing something quite different from a network losing brokers to a competitor. The count cannot tell those two apart, which is the whole problem.
Key takeaways
- The WealthX report has Connective up 206 credit reps since January and Finsure down 107; LMG and Lendi Group have both publicly disputed their own figures in it.
- The data is derived from ASIC credit licence and credit representative datasets, which record authorisations under a licence — not brokers. A broker moving to their own ACL leaves the count without leaving the aggregator.
- Across the 34 aggregators covered, the count rose 113 over the quarter but only 99 since January — on the reported figures, close to flat for the nine months.
- Credit representative headcount is a recruitment signal, not a measure of service quality, volume or profitability. Review your own aggregator on panel fit, turnaround, compliance support and total cost.
Five things a headcount cannot tell you
If you are using this data to inform a real decision, these are the gaps you are working around.
1. Volume
An aggregator can lose fifty low-volume representatives and gain ten writing serious books, and the table will show it going backwards. Nothing in the register weights a representative by what they settle. Headcount and market share are different questions, and only one of them is being measured here.
2. Why anyone left
A ceased authorisation is a single date field. Behind it could be a broker moving to a competitor, a broker retiring, a broker shifting to their own licence, a broker exiting the industry, a dual authorisation being tidied up, or a licensee declining to renew someone after a compliance review. Those have opposite implications for the aggregator and the register treats them identically.
3. Where growth came from
Recruiting experienced brokers from a competitor, bringing new-to-industry brokers into the channel, and acquiring a sub-aggregator all add to the line. They are very different businesses. Given the counted channel grew by about 99 across nine months, most of what the table shows is brokers moving between aggregators rather than brokers entering the industry.
4. The economics on either side
Headcount says nothing about what an aggregator charges, what it pays, or what it costs to serve a broker. A group growing fast on an aggressive fee structure and a group growing slowly at a healthy margin look similar in a count and feel very different to be part of in three years.
5. Whether any of it suits you
This is the one that matters most. The aggregator adding the most representatives is not necessarily the one whose panel, technology, commission model, compliance support or culture fits a self-employed-heavy commercial book in regional Queensland. Aggregate movement is not advice about your business.
What to review instead: a five-step aggregator check
If the quarterly numbers have prompted you to think about your own arrangement, run this review rather than reading the table again. It takes an afternoon and it is worth doing annually whether or not you intend to move.
- Pull your own last twelve months first
Before you look at any aggregator, list your settled volume, lender spread, average loan size, and the share of your book sitting with your top three lenders. Most brokers discover they are effectively a four-lender business. That single fact tells you more about whether panel breadth is your real constraint than any comparison table will.
- Test the panel against your declines, not your approvals
Go back through the deals you could not place in the last year. For each, identify whether the obstacle was policy, pricing, or your panel. If your panel was genuinely the binding constraint more than a handful of times, that is a concrete, costed reason to look elsewhere. If it was policy or file quality, changing aggregator solves nothing.
- Cost the whole arrangement, not the split
Headline splits are the easiest thing to compare and the least informative. Build the full annual cost: split or fee structure, software and CRM charges, compliance and audit costs, lead costs if any, professional indemnity, conference and accreditation costs, and any minimum terms or exit arrangements. Then divide by your settled volume to get a cost per dollar settled.
- Interrogate the support you actually consume
Ask specifically about the things you used in the last year: scenario and policy support response times, credit help on complex files, compliance and audit assistance, and who you reach when a file is stuck. Ask to speak to two brokers of similar size and book composition to yours — not the testimonials, two names you choose from the directory.
- Decide where your licence should sit, deliberately
Whether you operate as a credit representative or hold your own ACL changes your obligations, your costs, your supervision arrangements and, incidentally, whether you appear in these quarterly counts at all. It is a decision worth making on purpose rather than by default, and worth taking to your licensee or compliance adviser before you act.
Where BID and your obligations sit in this
Worth being clear on this, because the two get conflated. Choosing an aggregator is a business decision, not a Best Interest Duty decision. The best interests obligations under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 apply to the credit assistance you provide a consumer. They operate on your recommendation and your file, not on your commercial arrangements.
The two do touch at a couple of points, though.
- Panel breadth constrains, it does not excuse. If your panel does not carry a lender whose policy fits the client in front of you, that limits what you can offer. It does not change the standard applying to the recommendation you do make, or your obligation to tell the client where you cannot help.
- Supervision differs by licensing route. Where you operate as a credit representative, the licensee holds the licence obligations and supervises conduct, while the fact-find, verification, preliminary assessment and record-keeping on each file remain yours. Where you hold your own licence, the licensee obligations become yours as well — a nominated responsible manager, your own compliance framework, your own external dispute resolution membership and your own reporting to ASIC.
- Conflict priority sits with you either way. Nothing about your aggregator arrangement changes the requirement to prioritise the consumer’s interests where a conflict arises.
What any of that means for your specific arrangement is a question for your licensee or compliance adviser, not for a news article. The narrower point is this: the licensing arrangement that determines whether you appear in these numbers is the same arrangement that determines which obligations are yours. That is a large part of why the count moves for reasons that have nothing to do with anyone winning or losing brokers.
What to watch next
The flat total. Up 99 across nine months on a base of 19,929 is the most important number in the report and the least discussed. If the counted channel stays flat while individual aggregators post six and ten per cent gains, recruitment competition between groups intensifies — which usually shows up as better offers for brokers with portable books, and as pressure on the groups losing them.
The December quarter. Watch whether Connective’s run continues and whether LMG’s reported figures and the register-derived figures converge or diverge further. A widening gap would suggest a genuine shift in how brokers at the larger groups are choosing to hold their licences.
Whether anyone publishes the methodology. Neither WealthX’s nor Padua WealthData’s public pages set out how representatives are counted, how controller groups are assigned, or how own-licence brokers are treated. Until that is published, every quarter will produce the same argument, and brokers will keep being handed a scoreboard whose rules nobody can read.
The bottom line
The September quarter data is real, it is drawn from a real regulatory register, and the direction it shows for Connective, Finsure and Lendi is consistent with the quarter before it. None of that is in question.
What is in question is what it measures. A credit representative count tracks licensing authorisations. It does not track brokers, volume, revenue or whether anyone is happy. Two aggregators looked at their own line this quarter and said it understated them, and the register’s own field list shows how that can be true without anyone being wrong.
Read it as one recruitment signal among several. Then go and run the review that actually bears on your business — your lender spread, your declines, your full cost per dollar settled, and the support you genuinely use. That exercise will tell you more in an afternoon than four quarters of this table ever will.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a credit representative and a credit licensee?
A credit representative is authorised to engage in credit activities under someone else’s Australian Credit Licence — typically an aggregator’s. A credit licensee holds its own ACL and carries the licence-level obligations directly. Brokers commonly operate under either arrangement, and a broker with their own licence can still use an aggregator for systems, services and lender panel access.
Why would an aggregator’s reported count differ from its own figures?
Because the two are counting different populations. A register-derived count captures representatives authorised under a licence. If brokers join a group under their own credit licence, or under licences the methodology assigns differently, they can be part of the aggregator’s network without appearing in that line. This quarter, LMG reported a net increase of 55 under aggregator-owned licences against a reported net gain of two, and Lendi reported a base 110 representatives higher than the report’s.
Does a falling credit rep count mean an aggregator is in trouble?
Not on its own. A ceased authorisation is just a date field, and it covers resignations, retirements, industry exits, licensing changes, tidied-up dual authorisations and representatives offboarded after a compliance review. Those have opposite implications. The count also carries no weighting for volume, so a group can lose many small representatives and gain a few large ones while appearing to shrink.
How often is the underlying ASIC register updated?
ASIC’s published dataset description says the Credit Representative Register snapshot has been updated weekly, on Thursdays, since 20 March 2025, having previously been monthly. It records each representative’s number and name, their credit licensee number, ABN or ACN where applicable, commencement and cessation dates, principal business locality, state and postcode, an EDRS code, and authorisations and cross endorsements held.
Is choosing an aggregator a Best Interest Duty issue?
Choosing an aggregator is a commercial decision about your own business. The best interests obligations under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 apply to the credit assistance you provide a consumer. The two touch where panel breadth limits what you can offer a client, and where your licensing route determines whose supervision and compliance obligations apply. How that works for your arrangement is a question for your licensee or compliance adviser.
Breaking news for modern brokers
Policy shifts, lender changes and the numbers behind them — written for brokers, twice a day.
More at The Broker Times →Sources: WealthX credit representative report prepared with Padua WealthData, covering 1 July to 1 October 2026, as reported by The Adviser, 8 October 2026; WealthX Credit Rep Reports page, which states the reports are prepared from ASIC credit licence and credit representative datasets; ASIC Credit Representative Register dataset description, data.gov.au; published aggregator member information on credit representative and own-licence arrangements. Company figures are attributed to LMG and Lendi Group as stated by those companies and have not been independently verified. Where a figure appears in a single outlet it is attributed to that outlet in the text.
Interactive · Broker Tool
The Aggregator Review Your Headcount Table Can’t Do For You
Ten questions across the four things that actually bear on the arrangement: panel fit, cost, support and licensing. Answer honestly — nothing is sent anywhere.
Answer all ten to see your result.
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Where to focus
This is a self-assessment prompt for your own commercial review, not advice and not a rating of any aggregator. It does not assess your compliance obligations — take those to your licensee or compliance adviser. Nothing you enter leaves your browser.
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.
