Glossary
Fair questions, plain answers.
What an AI-native front office is, what the platform computes and records, where its boundaries sit and what it costs to run a firm on it. Written for broker principals, firm operators and the compliance teams who check.
Reviewed by the Brokerfront team ·
The category
What is an AI-native front office for mortgage broking?
It's the client-facing half of a brokerage: the branded website, the calculators and the fact-find conversation, built on AI from the start rather than added to a CRM later. The client talks; the platform turns the conversation into a structured loan file with evidence and computed numbers; the broker reviews, advises and decides. It prepares files. It doesn't replace the broker's judgement, and it doesn't replace the aggregator rails that lodge the loan.
What is Brokerfront?
Brokerfront is a platform Australian brokerages run under their own brand and credit licence. A client starts on the firm's website and completes the fact-find by voice or chat; the platform assembles a complete loan file, computes serviceability the way lenders do, and hands the file to a licensed broker for review. The firm keeps its brand, its lender panel and all of its commissions. Brokerfront never operates as a broker.
Is Brokerfront a white-label loan product?
No. In Australian broking, “white label” usually means a lender's loan product sold under another brand. Brokerfront is software: the firm's own website, fact-find and loan files, running under the firm's brand. The loans themselves come from the firm's own lender panel, on the firm's own accreditations.
The broker workflow
What is a conversational fact-find?
Instead of a form, the client tells their story by voice or chat, in their own time, on the firm's website. Each accepted answer becomes a structured fact on the loan file: income, employment, assets, liabilities. Nothing has to be re-keyed from a transcript, and the broker opens a file that's already taking shape.
How does the platform compute serviceability?
Deterministically, the way lenders compute it: the APRA 3% serviceability buffer, HEM expense floors and income shading, applied per lender. Same inputs, same answer, every time. The AI never invents a number; figures come only from these engines, and the calculation behind every result stays on the file.
What arrives for broker review?
A prepared file: structured facts from the fact-find, documents with extracted data held as proposed until reviewed, serviceability computed per lender, and a ranked comparison with reasons for and against each option. The broker reviews it, applies judgement and owns the recommendation.
What does the broker still do?
Everything that needs judgement. The platform carries, prepares, arranges and records; the broker reviews, explains, decides, owns and signs. A recommendation cannot be issued without a licensed broker reviewing the comparison basis and signing off. There is no code path around it.
Compliance and records
How does the platform support Best Interests Duty?
Every comparison a client sees is frozen as a record before they see it: the lenders considered, why each won or lost, and what would change the answer. The licensed broker reviews that frozen basis, adopts or amends the drafted reasons, attests and signs. The obligation stays with the licensee; the platform makes the evidence automatic.
What is an append-only audit trail?
A trail nobody can edit. Every consent, calculation, review and sign-off is written once to a log the database itself refuses to update or delete, and loan files carry a seven-year retention guard. When an auditor asks what happened on a file, the answer is generated from the record, not reconstructed from memory.
Who holds the credit licence?
The firm does. Brokerfront provides technology to licensed credit businesses; it does not hold an Australian Credit Licence and does not provide credit assistance. Regulatory obligations rest with the licensee, and the platform's job is to make meeting them produce its own evidence.
Can the AI give credit advice?
No. The assistant collects facts, explains terms and prepares the file. It cannot quote numbers before the basics exist, cannot mark evidence verified on say-so, cannot skip a stage of the file's legal life, and cannot show a personalised comparison before the client has accepted the disclosures. Those limits are enforced in code, not in a policy document.
Where does client data live?
In Australia. Compute, database and storage run in Sydney, every firm's tenancy is isolated from every other firm's, and a firm can export its complete record at any time.
Running a firm on it
What is a tenancy?
A firm's own room on the platform: its brand, website, loan files, records and team, isolated from every other firm's. Plans are priced per tenancy, and a network can run several branded tenancies on one engine, with one standard of supervision underneath.
What counts as a billable application?
Only a file a client submits for broker review. Conversations, calculators, drafts and incomplete sessions aren't billed.
Does Brokerfront take a share of commission?
No. The firm keeps its commission arrangements in full. Brokerfront is priced as software: a plan for the firm plus a rate per application it prepares.
Does it replace our CRM or aggregator software?
No. Brokerfront covers the client front door, the structured origination file and the broker workspace. Lender lodgement, settlement and commission reconciliation stay on your aggregator rails, and our comparison pages say plainly when another tool is the better fit.
What happens if we leave?
A complete export leaves with you: files, documents, records and history. Every tenancy can be exported in full at any time, and clients remain the firm's clients.
What are the showcase firms?
Breezeway Home Loans, Fieldnote Finance and Ledger House Finance are fictional demonstration brokerages, built with the same studio customers use and running on the same engine. They exist so you can try the client experience end to end. They aren't real firms, they're labelled as demonstrations, and we deliberately keep them out of search results.
A question we haven't answered? Ask us directly — compliance teams welcome.
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