How lenders are changing the game through platform innovations

For this year’s finalists in the Innovator of the Year – Lender Technology Platform category, the answer lies in the technology, systems, and processes that support brokers behind the scenes.

As brokers demand greater speed, transparency, and certainty, lenders are investing heavily in digital tools, automation, and platform enhancements designed to reduce friction throughout the lending journey.

From digital verification and automated documentation to broker portal upgrades and streamlined onboarding experiences, this year’s finalists have embraced a range of approaches to improving the broker and customer experience.

Ahead of the awards, Broker Daily spoke to the finalists about the innovations they are most proud of and the impact those investments are having on brokers and borrowers alike.

Bankwest: Built by brokers, designed for speed

According to Ian Rakhit, general manager, third party at Bankwest, the lender’s recent innovations have been driven by broker feedback and a focus on reducing friction throughout the home lending journey.

“Through our Built by Brokers program, we work directly with brokers to understand where friction exists in the lending journey and what improvements would have the biggest impact on their business and their customers,” Rakhit said.

“Consistent feedback around speed, certainty, visibility and reducing administration helped shape many of our recent investments.”

Recent enhancements to its Broker Portal, digital identity verification, and onboarding processes have been aimed at reducing administration and giving brokers greater visibility throughout the loan process.

“Over the past 12 months, we’ve enhanced our Broker Portal, launched Digital ID Check and introduced a more seamless onboarding experience for customers,” Rakhit said.

“These improvements help brokers spend less time on administration and more time supporting customers.

“We’ve also improved operational performance through initiatives like upfront valuations, DocBox Check and faster contract issuance, which can often occur within minutes of approval.

“Digital ID Check has reduced manual verification and helped minimise More Information Required requests, while enhancements to the Broker Portal provide greater visibility and self-service capability for brokers and their support teams.

“Customers also benefit from a smoother onboarding experience, with more tasks able to be completed before settlement.

“Combined with faster approvals and quicker contract issuance, these innovations help brokers deliver greater certainty and a better overall experience for their customers.

“The result is less rework, fewer delays and more time spent focusing on customer outcomes.”

AMP Bank: Delivering certainty earlier in the process

“We’re most proud of rebuilding the broker lending experience from the ground up,” Michael Christofides, director of lending & everyday banking at AMP Bank, said.

“Our new platform has been co-designed with brokers to remove friction, bring more certainty earlier in the lending process, and materially reduce the time from application to approval.”

With 96 per cent of business coming through the third-party channel, Christofides said that the development of the platform was done so with the direct help of brokers.

“We worked closely with brokers through workshops, pilots and continuous feedback loops to identify the pain points that matter most – from rework and document collection to visibility, speed and certainty,” Christofides said.

“The result is a broker-led platform designed to make lending easier, faster and more predictable, so brokers can spend more time advising their clients and less time chasing paperwork.

“The biggest change is that brokers can now have greater confidence in an application early in the process. By embedding income verification, digital ID and key policy checks upfront, we’re reducing rework, speeding up decisions and giving brokers more certainty around what will be approved.”

The new platform has been complemented with the launch of new products, such as SMSF lending and 10-year interest-only loans.

Brighten: Scaling specialist lending through technology

For Brighten, innovation has centred on combining technology, operational improvements, and product enhancements to better support brokers.

“One of the most significant innovations was the rollout of MSA 90-second documents and auto-documentation capability, allowing loan documents to be generated within minutes of formal approval,” Chris Meaker, head of sales and distribution, said.

“We also enhanced the Brighten Broker Portal with improved dashboard functionality, giving brokers greater visibility over application progress and pipeline management.

“Alongside this, we implemented an AWS telephony platform with AI-driven quality assurance capability, helping us improve service visibility, monitor interactions more effectively and lift the consistency of broker and customer support.”

According to Meaker, Brighten’s innovation strategy has been heavily influenced by broker and staff feedback. Insights from its monthly broker survey program helped identify areas for improvement across the lending process, while feedback from frontline teams led to operational changes aimed at improving efficiency and accountability.

“These innovations have helped Brighten deliver a faster, more transparent and more reliable experience for brokers and their clients,” he added.

“For brokers, the introduction of MSA 90-second documents has created greater speed and certainty at a critical point in the loan journey.

“By moving settlement-related activity further upstream and introducing stronger validation checkpoints earlier in the process, teams can focus on exceptions rather than manually reviewing every file.

“The Broker Portal enhancements have also improved visibility, giving brokers a clearer view of their applications and helping them manage their pipeline more proactively. At the same time, our investment in AI-driven quality assurance and structured feedback loops has helped us identify service improvements more quickly and deliver a more consistent experience across every interaction.

“Ultimately, these changes have allowed Brighten to support growth without compromising service quality, giving brokers greater confidence when placing specialist, complex or higher-value lending scenarios with us.”

Brighten also looked at innovating through product. The lender has expanded its offering with the launch of SMSF lending across both residential and commercial segments, as well as Jumbo Loans of up to $15 million.

Bridgit: Using AI to deliver speed and certainty

For Bridgit, innovation has centred on using proprietary technology and artificial intelligence to streamline the lending process. According to co-founder and CEO Aaron Bassin, the lender’s AI operating system, ATLAS, has been designed to reduce manual work while delivering faster outcomes for brokers and borrowers.

“It would have to be the development of our AI operating system – ATLAS. It acts as the intelligence layer powering our Loan Management System,” Bassin said.

“At its core is ADAM, our Agentic Decision Automation Module, which can turn around a conditional approval in as little as 120 seconds.

“In 2025, ATLAS saved over 2,000 manual credit assessment hours. That’s nearly 90 full working days of work handed back to our team.

“But more than the numbers, it means our brokers and their customers get a lending experience that’s genuinely faster and more intuitive, and that’s what we built it for.”

Bassin said Bridgit’s strategy was driven by a desire to challenge the manual processes often associated with traditional lending. Drawing on broker feedback, the lender focused on building technology that could improve speed and certainty without sacrificing service.

“We listened to our brokers, identified the gaps that traditional lenders simply weren’t structured to fill, and built the technology to help customers move faster on their property journey,” he said.

“What we heard on the ground was later confirmed by research: speed and certainty are the most important features for brokers choosing a lender.”

Bassin added that the technology has helped break the traditional link between lending volume and headcount growth while giving brokers greater visibility and confidence throughout the application process.

“For brokers, everything from document uploads to real-time progress tracking lives in one place,” he said.

“Backed by 24-hour approvals and 25 per cent Straight Through Assessment, they get what they tell us matters most: speed and certainty – even above price.

“At the end of the day, we’re not just processing loans. We’re giving brokers and their customers the confidence to move forward and that’s the part we’re most proud of.”

Celebrating innovation

Winners for the Broker Innovation Awards will be announced at the awards ceremony at Ilumina, Sydney, on Wednesday, 24 June 2026.

The black-tie gala event will showcase the depth of talent of professionals and teams across the nation’s mortgage industry while affirming the sector’s essential role in supporting the expansion of Australia.

Buy tickets for the awards here.

Tickets are still available for the event, as they are for the Business Innovation Summit, two one-day events in Sydney (24 June) and Melbourne (3 July), exploring the cutting edge of tech and how brokers can actually apply it to win. Find out more here.

[Related: AI is racing ahead – are brokerages keeping up?]

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