The trust dividend: how Open Banking is really delivering for brokers

A year on from the launch of Frollo for Brokers, up to a third of mortgage applications from leading aggregator groups are now being sourced through Open Banking data, and some brokers are using it in close to 100 per cent of their deals. In a new Broker Daily Spotlight episode, NextGen’s Chief Customer Officer, Tony Carn, joins host Julian Barnes to unpack what’s driving that momentum, coming off the back of the 2026 Broker Innovation Summit and NextGen’s Service Provider of the Year – Large company win at the MFAA National Awards.

The problem Frollo for Brokers was built to solve

When NextGen set out to make Open Banking accessible to every broker in Australia, the opportunity was clear. Together with its Open Banking subsidiary, Frollo, one of the industry’s leading providers, the challenge was reaching the brokers who weren’t yet part of the early movers.

The solution was Frollo for Brokers: a platform that lets any broker in Australia register, verify their status under the CDR trusted adviser model, and be set up within around 24 hours with ongoing, real-time access to a customer’s Open Banking data. Realising that potential at scale, however, takes technology leadership from the aggregators themselves. Connective and Mortgage Choice were early to demonstrate that leadership, integrating Open Banking directly into their CRMs, and the results speak for themselves. Up to 60 per cent of brokers in those groups are now using Open Banking regularly, with 35 per cent of mortgage applications sourced through it.

A year of momentum

Twelve months on from launch, broker take-up has moved well past early-adopter territory. The biggest hurdle, as with any new technology, has been change management: brokers moving out of their comfort zone and trying it for the first time. But once they do, the pattern is consistent. Brokers who adopt Open Banking tend to stick with it, with some now using it in close to 100 per cent of their deals. That stickiness comes down to the trust it builds with customers, who no longer need to hand over internet banking passwords to get a deal moving.

Trust is the thread running through it all

Every efficiency gain in this story traces back to the same source. Verified, source-supplied data removes the guesswork from an application, and that changes the relationship on both sides of the desk.

“The keyword for me is trust. Having a trusted source of data, a federally regulated regime where banks must provide that information without providing internet banking log-ons and passwords,” Tony said.

That trust cuts across the whole ecosystem. For customers, it means not having to hand over banking credentials or go through screen scraping. For brokers, it means real-time data they can request again whenever they need it. And for the industry, it’s become a serious fraud prevention tool, giving lenders a source of truth that’s far harder to falsify than a manually supplied document. It’s not a stopgap measure either. It’s shaping up as the long-term standard for how financial data moves through the lending process.

Lenders are leaning in

Open Banking’s impact isn’t confined to the broker channel. Lenders are increasingly recognising the value of pre-verified data, and the flow-on effects are significant: fewer information requests, less rework, and more loans moving through straight-through processing, where a lender receives a deal once and returns an unconditional approval.

Beyond Bank Australia is a recent example, having launched Open Banking in its first-party channel with uptake described as phenomenal within just four days. Across the market, around one in ten loans are now being constructed using Open Banking data, whether or not a broker is involved.

The efficiency gains are tangible at the coalface too. One Mortgage Choice office in Melbourne, processing around 40 deals a week, found the technology was saving at least an hour per deal on data collection alone, the equivalent of a full-time role freed up for higher-value work.

Where it’s heading next

Open Banking is on track to become the standard way home loan data is collected, with more lenders expected to harness verified data earlier in the process to speed up approvals. As Tony put it, “I come back to the word trust again. It’s going to be the continuing story we hear over and over: the trust that Open Banking helps brokers establish, alongside the benefits around efficiency and speed, that will ultimately change the game.”

There’s plenty more in the full conversation, including how Open Banking is extending beyond mortgages into personal loans and credit cards, and how brokers can use it to have smarter, earlier conversations with customers about their borrowing power.