Clawback cost the median Australian mortgage broker $11,442 in 2025, up 16.5 per cent on the prior year, against median reported gross upfront revenue of $126,941 (MFAA State of Mortgage & Finance Broking Report 2026). Clawback therefore runs at about 9 per cent of upfront revenue, and for an eight-broker firm that is roughly $91,500 of already-earned commission written back each year.
The idea
Clawback is the only line in a brokerage's revenue that is earned, banked and then taken back, and until 25 September 2026 the Australian industry had no published number for it. The MFAA released its inaugural State of Mortgage & Finance Broking Report 2026 on that date, carrying the first industry-level clawback measure, which put median reported gross clawback per broker at $11,442 in 2025 against about $9,820 in 2024 (MFAA, 2026). The MFAA is explicit that the clawback figures come from a matched sample of five aggregator groups and "should not be interpreted as broker-level medians, net broker income, or whole-of-market benchmarks", which is the right caution for any brokerage to carry into its own numbers.
What makes clawback an operating problem rather than a commission problem is that every clawback is preceded by something visible. A home loan discharges inside the lender's clawback window, commonly the first 24 months after settlement, because the client refinanced to another lender, sold the property or repaid the loan, and in most cases the signals were sitting in the brokerage's own CRM for months beforehand whilst nobody was reading them. It is the same operational gap that sits behind settlements brokers have already won, moved to the other side of the settlement date.
| Clawback trigger | The signal that comes before it | Where the data already sits |
|---|---|---|
| Refinance to another lender | Rate position drifting above current market offers, no repricing requested | CRM rate and lender fields, lender rate sheets |
| Fixed-rate expiry onto a higher variable rate | Fixed term ending within the next 120 days | CRM product and expiry fields |
| Property sale inside 24 months | Loan age under two years, buyer or seller intent signals | CRM settlement date, property intent data |
| Full repayment or debt consolidation | Offset and redraw balances building, additional repayments | Lender servicing and statement data |
Why it matters
Clawback grew in 2025 because volume grew, which means an Australian brokerage writing more loans is also carrying more clawback exposure than it was two years ago. Brokers settled 838,815 residential loans worth $495.55 billion in 2025, up 17.2 per cent and 23.5 per cent respectively, whilst the reported broker population rose 9.1 per cent to 24,116, so loans per broker went up rather than being absorbed by new entrants (MFAA, 2026). Brokers also held a record 81.6 per cent share of new residential home loans in 2026 (MFAA, 2026), and a larger book written across a rate cycle is a larger exposure to loans that move early.
The churn pool that drives clawback is measurable in Australia rather than theoretical. ABS Lending Indicators for the June Quarter 2026 recorded 66,449 external refinancing commitments by owner occupiers worth $41.9 billion, and 36,597 by investors worth $25.2 billion, with investor external refinancing up 5.3 per cent in number and 12.0 per cent in value on a year earlier (ABS, released 14 August 2026). Every one of those commitments was a borrower leaving one lender for another, and a share of them sat inside somebody's clawback window at the time.
The MFAA report also recorded the settlements-to-applications ratio slipping from 93.06 per cent to 92.06 per cent across a matched sample of eight aggregator groups (MFAA, 2026), so brokerages are working slightly harder for each settlement at the same time as the clawback on those settlements is rising in dollar terms. The pressure sits alongside the share of a broker's day actually spent on advice rather than on process.
The arithmetic is worth running against your own numbers rather than taking on faith, so here it is with every input on the table.
| Input | Value | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Median reported gross clawback per broker, 2025 | $11,442 | MFAA, 2026 |
| Median reported gross clawback per broker, 2024 | ~$9,820 | MFAA, 2026 |
| Median reported gross upfront revenue per broker, 2025 | $126,941 | MFAA, 2026 |
| Clawback as a share of upfront revenue | 9.01% | $11,442 divided by $126,941 |
| Brokers in the worked example | 8 | Illustrative, substitute your own |
| Clawback across eight brokers | $91,536 a year | $11,442 x 8 |
| Share of discharges prevented | 1 in 4 | Alvo assumption, not a published figure |
| Retained on that assumption | $22,884 | $91,536 x 0.25 |
| Alvo Assess | ~$5,000 | Alvo services |
| First-year recovery against the engagement | about 4.6 times | $22,884 divided by $5,000 |
The one-in-four prevention rate is an Alvo assumption rather than a published figure, so test it against your own discharge history before you rely on it. Every other input is substitutable, and the point of setting them out this way is that a principal can rebuild the number with their own broker count, their own clawback statements and their own book inside an hour.
The Alvo take
A brokerage reduces clawback by working the clawback window rather than the whole book, which is a narrower and considerably cheaper exercise than a full retention programme. The task is to rank every loan written in the past 24 months by the likelihood that it discharges before the window closes, then put the top of that list in front of a broker whilst a repricing conversation is still available.
The ranking is the part AI does well, because the inputs are structured data an Australian brokerage already holds: settlement date, lender, product, rate, fixed-rate expiry, offset and redraw behaviour and the date of last contact. Mortgage Choice has taken a version of this to market, feeding buyer and seller intent scores from realestate.com.au and PropTrack into its broker CRM as low, medium and high ratings across a network of more than 1,100 brokers (The Adviser, 22 May 2026), though no accuracy or conversion figures have been published for it. The same distinction applies here as in AI file checking and loan approval times, which is that the software handles the reading and the ranking whilst the credit judgement stays with a licensed person.
Two things are worth flagging before a brokerage builds it. The first is that the clawback schedule differs by lender, so the ranking has to carry each lender's window and recovery scale rather than assume 24 months across the board. The second is the amended Privacy Act 1988, where from 10 December 2026 a privacy policy must describe the personal information used in computer programs that make, or substantially help make, decisions affecting a person's rights, so a brokerage ranking its own clients needs that description written and accurate before the system runs.
A pragmatic pathway for a principal this quarter is narrow on purpose. Pull the last 24 months of clawback statements from the aggregator and total them, because most brokerages have never added the number up, then segment only the loans still inside the window by lender, rate position and fixed-rate expiry and run the outreach on the top decile for a quarter before judging it. Alvo's work with brokerages starts at that baseline rather than at a software shortlist, and a structured assessment of your operations and tools is what turns the sequence into a plan.
Clawback is the only line in a brokerage's revenue that is earned, banked and then taken back, and until September 2026 the Australian industry had no published number for it. At the MFAA medians an eight-broker firm writes back about $91,500 a year. The fix is not a retention programme across the whole book, it is ranking only the loans still inside the 24-month clawback window by the likelihood they discharge early, which is structured data the brokerage already holds.
Sources: MFAA State of Mortgage & Finance Broking Report 2026, released 25 September 2026, as reported by The Adviser and Australian Broker, 28 September 2026. MFAA Quarterly Market Share Report, 2026, compiled by Cotality. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Lending Indicators, June Quarter 2026, released 14 August 2026. The Adviser on Mortgage Choice intent scoring, 22 May 2026. Automated decision-making transparency obligation under the amended Privacy Act 1988, commencing 10 December 2026.
Common questions
How much does clawback cost the average Australian mortgage broker?
The MFAA State of Mortgage & Finance Broking Report 2026 put median reported gross clawback at $11,442 per broker for 2025, up 16.5 per cent from about $9,820 in 2024, in a matched sample of five aggregator groups. The MFAA states these figures are not broker-level medians or whole-of-market benchmarks, so a brokerage should measure its own clawback rather than assume the median applies to it.
What triggers a clawback on an Australian home loan?
A clawback happens when a home loan discharges inside the lender's clawback period, commonly the first 24 months after settlement, and the lender recovers part or all of the upfront commission already paid to the broker. Refinancing to another lender, selling the property and repaying the loan in full all commonly trigger clawback, and the recovery scale varies from lender to lender.
Can AI reduce clawback in a mortgage brokerage?
AI reduces clawback indirectly, by identifying the loans most likely to discharge inside the clawback window before they actually do. Settlement date, fixed-rate expiry, loan age, rate position against current market offers and redraw behaviour already sit in an Australian brokerage CRM, and a model ranks that book so a broker makes contact whilst a repricing or retention conversation is still possible.
Is clawback getting worse for Australian brokers?
In dollar terms yes, and as a proportion of revenue it has held roughly steady. Median reported gross clawback rose 16.5 per cent in 2025 whilst median reported gross upfront revenue rose 16.0 per cent to $126,941, so clawback sat near 9 per cent of upfront revenue in both years (MFAA, 2026). The dollar figure grew largely because broker settlement volumes grew 23.5 per cent over the same period.
Does my brokerage need to disclose that it uses AI on client data?
From 10 December 2026 the amended Privacy Act 1988 requires an Australian entity's privacy policy to describe the personal information used in computer programs that make, or substantially help make, decisions affecting an individual's rights. A brokerage using AI to rank or prioritise its own clients should have that description written, accurate and published before the system starts running on live client data.