26-240MR ASIC review finds room for improvement in mortgage brokers’ best interests duty practices

While the release is not new law, it puts the broking sector on notice: supervisory expectations are rising, and poor documentation or inconsistent advice processes will attract scrutiny. For compliance teams, this means revisiting how best interests duty is embedded—from fact-finds and product comparisons to conflict management and file notes. Firms should test whether recommendation rationales are clear, specific and defensible, and whether training and monitoring catch poor practice early.

Lenders and aggregators should also consider how they oversee broker networks, given shared reputational and regulatory risk. The review creates a near-term priority to strengthen evidence trails and customer outcome testing. It also presents an opportunity: brokers that can clearly demonstrate BID compliance may win trust and market share as ASIC continues to focus on consumer credit conduct.

RegCanary view: treat this as a prompt for self-assessment, not a one-off read. Allocate ownership, update procedures, and document remediation.