A loan broker is a licensed intermediary who arranges finance between you and a panel of lenders, rather than selling one bank’s products. In Australia, brokers arranging consumer credit must operate under an Australian Credit Licence and, since 2021, are legally bound by a Best Interests Duty — an obligation banks themselves don’t owe you when selling their own loans. In practice, a broker assesses your position, compares loan structures and pricing across their lender panel, prepares and lodges the application, and manages it through to settlement. At Providence, that work is done by partners with backgrounds in banking and commercial lending — which shapes how we prepare applications, because we understand how lenders assess them.

Yes — that is the core of the role, but the real value is in how the application is prepared and where it’s placed. Lenders differ meaningfully in how they treat income types, existing debts, security property and loan purpose. A broker’s job is to match your circumstances to the lender whose credit policy actually fits them, then present the application the way that lender expects to see it. That preparation typically matters more than rate-shopping: a well-structured application to the right lender tends to move faster and with fewer conditions than a strong borrower presented poorly. If your scenario is complex — self-employed income, multiple securities, commercial elements — that placement decision is usually the difference.

Seven of the most common loan types in Australia are: home loans (owner-occupied residential), investment property loans, commercial property loans, business and working capital finance, SMSF loans (property purchased inside a self-managed super fund), asset and equipment finance, and personal loans. Refinancing isn’t a separate loan type — it’s the process of restructuring or replacing any of the above. Each category is assessed differently: residential lending is driven by serviceability and living-expense benchmarks, while commercial lending turns on security quality, lease covenants and business cash flow. Providence arranges finance across all seven categories.

For most residential home and investment loans, using a broker typically costs you nothing directly — the broker is paid a commission by the lender you ultimately settle with, and that commission doesn’t increase your interest rate or fees. Brokers must disclose their remuneration to you before you proceed. For complex commercial transactions, some brokers (including Providence, in certain structured scenarios) may charge a fee for service — where that applies, it’s agreed and documented in writing before any work begins, never discovered afterwards. What you should never encounter is an undisclosed cost.

For most borrowers, yes — and the structural reason is access and obligation, not just convenience. A single bank can only offer you its own products and owes you no duty to recommend what’s best for you. A broker compares across a panel of lenders and is legally required, under the Best Interests Duty, to act in your interests. Around three-quarters of new Australian home loans are now written through brokers, which reflects that structural advantage. The cases where a broker adds the most value: non-standard income, tight serviceability, investment portfolios with cross-collateralised securities, and any commercial element. The case where value is thinnest: a simple loan, vanilla income, and you already know exactly which product you want.

Judge a broker on outcomes, not access. The measurable value shows up in three places: structure (splits, offsets, avoiding cross-collateralisation that traps equity for your next purchase), placement (choosing the lender whose credit policy fits your income and security profile, which affects both approval odds and pricing), and negotiation (pricing discretions and retention offers that aren’t advertised). A repricing negotiated with your existing lender — no refinance at all — is sometimes the strongest outcome, and a broker acting in your best interests should tell you that plainly. If a broker only ever talks about the headline rate, you’re getting the thin version of the service.

Going directly to a bank means one credit policy, one product set, and a lender under no obligation to tell you a competitor would treat you better. Going through a broker means your scenario is compared across a panel before it’s lodged anywhere — and a formal Best Interests Duty applies to the recommendation. The bank path can suit borrowers with a simple profile and a strong existing banking relationship, particularly where that bank prices aggressively to retain them. The broker path typically wins when policy differences between lenders matter: self-employed income, recent job changes, small deposits, investment lending, or any commercial component. The honest answer is that a good broker will also tell you when your own bank is the right answer — and negotiate the repricing for you.

Direct-to-lender suits one situation well: you’ve independently confirmed that lender’s credit policy fits your profile and their pricing is genuinely competitive for your scenario. The difficulty is that credit policy isn’t published in a comparable way — serviceability buffers, income shading, and security appetite vary between lenders and change without announcement. That’s the information gap a broker closes. With backgrounds in banking and commercial lending, our partners understand how lenders assess applications, which is why we prepare files to answer a credit team’s questions before they’re asked. Going direct saves you nothing on cost for most residential loans (the borrower typically pays no broker fee either way), so the decision rests on whether you want one lender’s view of your application or a comparison.

For approval odds specifically, a broker’s advantage is placement before lodgement. Every formal application a lender declines leaves a credit enquiry on your file, and multiple enquiries in a short window make the next lender more cautious. A broker workshops your scenario against lender policy first — often confirming appetite with a lender’s BDM before anything is lodged — so the application that goes in is one that fits. That sequencing matters most for borrowers near a serviceability edge, with complex income, or with prior credit events. For a straightforward borrower, the difference narrows, but the comparison across lenders still typically produces a better structure or price than a single-lender view.

As a broad indicative guide only, a household income of roughly $100,000–$130,000 is typically in the range lenders look for on a $500,000 loan — but the honest answer is that no single salary figure applies, because lenders don’t assess your actual rate. They assess your repayments at your rate plus a serviceability buffer (currently around 3 percentage points under APRA guidance), then deduct living expenses benchmarked against your household size, plus every existing debt and credit card limit. Two applicants on the same salary can have materially different borrowing power. Dual incomes, few dependants and low existing debt push capacity up; the reverse pulls it down. Run your scenario through our calculators, then speak to a partner for a lender-specific answer — capacity is subject to lender and panel.

Indicatively, a $700,000 mortgage typically sits within reach of household incomes in the vicinity of $140,000–$180,000 — with the same caveat as any borrowing-power figure: lenders assess your repayments at an inflated buffer rate, not your actual rate, and then apply living-expense benchmarks and debt-to-income limits that differ between institutions. This is where lender selection genuinely changes the answer. Some lenders apply reduced buffers to like-for-like refinances; some shade certain income types (bonus, commission, rental) more heavily than others; some are firmer on total debt-to-income ratios. The spread between the most and least generous lender on the same application can be six figures of borrowing power. Model it on our calculators, then have a partner map it against actual lender policy — all figures subject to lender and panel.

There’s no single “best” broker — but there is a right broker for your scenario, and a short checklist finds them. Verify they’re licensed or authorised under an Australian Credit Licence (searchable on ASIC’s Credit Register). Ask what their lender panel looks like and how they’re remunerated. Most importantly, match their specialisation to your situation: a broker who mainly writes first-home loans is rarely the right fit for a commercial acquisition or SMSF structure, and vice versa. Providence Lending Group operates as Credit Representative 576498 of Australian Credit Licence 384704, and our partners’ backgrounds are in banking and commercial lending — our specialisation is structured residential, investment and commercial finance for scenarios with moving parts. If that matches your situation, speak to a partner and judge us on the quality of the conversation.

A commercial finance broker arranges lending secured by commercial property or business assets — owner-occupied premises, investment property, acquisitions, equipment and working capital — and, unlike residential broking, much of the work is structuring rather than comparison. Commercial credit decisions turn on things a rate table never shows: security quality, lease covenants and WALE on investment property, maintainable earnings on an acquisition, and how much of the directors’ personal property sits inside the security package. A commercial broker builds the funding structure, prepares the application to answer a credit team’s questions in advance, and negotiates terms — pricing, covenants, security release — not just rate. Our partners’ backgrounds in banking and commercial lending mean we understand how lenders assess commercial applications, and we structure files accordingly.

Typically 65–80% of the property’s value for standard commercial property, subject to lender and panel — but the range moves with the asset and the borrower. Owner-occupied premises supported by strong business cash flow typically sit at the upper end; standard investment property with a solid lease typically lands around 65–75%; specialised assets (childcare, pubs, medical) are lender-by-lender, with some funders lending strongly against them and others avoiding the class entirely. SMSF commercial purchases are typically capped lower again under limited recourse borrowing rules. Beyond the LVR, the lever that matters is what the loan is serviced by — lease income, business trading, or both — because that determines which lenders will look at the deal at all. Speak to a partner with the property details and we’ll map the realistic range across the panel.