Agile Market Intelligence celebrates seven years of Broker Pulse

This September marks an exciting milestone for Agile Market Intelligence as Broker Pulse celebrates seven years of giving brokers a collective voice and tracking lender performance across the third-party channel.

Broker Pulse was created to bring greater transparency to the third-party lending industry and provide lenders with regular, aggregated broker feedback to support continued improvement across the industry.

For brokers, it provides a view of what their peers are experiencing across the market. For lenders, it provides independent feedback to support what they hear from BDMs and assessors and identify where they are performing well and where there may be opportunities to improve.

According to Michael Johnson, Director of Agile Market Intelligence, this remains at the heart of Broker Pulse seven years on.

“Broker Pulse was created to give brokers a collective voice and bring greater transparency to the third-party lending industry. It allows brokers to understand how their experiences compare with the wider market, while giving lenders independent feedback they can use to continually improve,” Johnson said.

19,000+ broker responses recorded since launch

Broker Pulse launched off the back of the annual Third-Party Lending Report to give brokers and lenders a more frequent view of the market. While the methodology has remained consistent over the past seven years, the research has continued to evolve.

This has included adding insights into the reasons brokers choose particular lenders and lender-specific feedback. Importantly, Broker Pulse has also expanded into commercial lending, giving commercial brokers a platform to share their experiences and providing commercial lenders with insights that were previously unavailable.

Participation in Broker Pulse has grown significantly over the past seven years, from around 120 broker responses a month at launch to more than 400 today. In total, brokers have contributed over 19,000 responses, helping Broker Pulse track how broker experiences and expectations have changed over time. That growth has been matched by strong industry support, with Broker Pulse growing from the backing of just three lenders at launch to 30 lenders today, including all four major banks.

The reach of Broker Pulse has also expanded beyond brokers and lenders, with insights now used by equity research firms to provide an independent view of lender performance and broader trends across the third-party lending market.

Seven years of changing broker expectations

Seven years of consistent research has provided a clear view of how broker expectations and lender performance have changed over time.

During this time, Broker Pulse has captured some interesting shifts across the industry. In 2021, turnaround times were at their longest, with some lenders taking more than two weeks to pick up a file. Since then, there has been consistent improvement across the industry, to the point where 10 days would now be considered an extended turnaround time.

“Over the past seven years, Broker Pulse has provided a consistent barometer of changing broker expectations. We’ve seen the benchmark continue to rise as lenders invest in the third-party channel and brokers come to expect increasingly high standards of service,” Johnson said.

Broker Pulse has also become increasingly embedded in how lenders assess their performance.

“What has been particularly encouraging is seeing Broker Pulse become embedded in how lenders assess their performance. The insights are now used in KPIs and state-level reporting and are reaching the desks of CEOs. This reflects not only the growing importance of Broker Pulse, but the increasing importance of the broker channel within these organisations,” Johnson said.

What's next for Broker Pulse?

Agile Market Intelligence is now working on new insights to help lenders better understand how they are perceived by both the brokers who use them and those who don't.

“The next evolution of Broker Pulse is about helping lenders understand their position beyond the brokers they already work with. We want to provide a clearer view of how lenders are perceived across the wider broker market, where they are considered leaders and where opportunities exist to strengthen their position,” Johnson said.

Seven years on, Broker Pulse has grown alongside the third-party channel it was created to support. As it enters its eighth year, the focus remains on giving brokers a strong collective voice and providing lenders with the insights to continue raising the benchmark across the industry.

To participate in the Broker Pulse survey and for more information, click here.