No one wants to say this out loud, but the broker model is closer to its biggest test in decades.
The mortgage market won’t look the same in three years’ time, and brokers won’t be able to rely on yesterday’s assumptions. For years, mortgage brokers have reassured themselves that they’re safe. This isn’t a prediction about brokers disappearing. It’s a warning about which ones will matter.
Essential. Irreplaceable. Protected by the belief that lenders can’t, or won’t, ever go direct at scale.
But what if 2026 is the year that illusion finally cracks?
A perfect storm is forming. Technology, regulation, consumer behaviour and lender strategy are converging quietly and steadily. The consequences could reshape the mortgage market faster than many expect. Brokers who don’t see what’s coming may soon find themselves on the outside looking in.
High street lenders are no longer scared of going direct
For decades, high street lenders publicly praised the broker channel while privately wishing they owned the customer relationship themselves.
Now they finally can.
Open Banking. Automated affordability engines. Smarter credit models. Frictionless ID and income verification. AI driven decisioning. A borrower can already move from discovery to application to offer without a human advisor touching the case.
Lenders know it. Some are testing it. Many won’t announce it.
They’ll simply shift.
The elephant in the room: dual pricing
Very few lenders will say this out loud, but the maths is obvious.
Remove the procuration fee and the margin left behind becomes hard to ignore.
2026 could be the year direct exclusive pricing stops being taboo and starts being normal. The message would be brutally simple.
Come to us direct and get a cheaper rate. Use a broker and pay more.
It already exists in other financial products, whether in insurance industry or energy sector. It’s creeping into product transfers and refinancing journeys. And once one major lender commits openly to dual pricing, it sets a precedent and the dominoes could fall quickly.
High street lenders want the relationship back
Right now, brokers own the relationship. Lenders own the loan.
From a commercial perspective, that’s upside down.
Customer ownership means repeat business, cross sell, lifetime value, brand loyalty and lower acquisition costs. Every boardroom in the mortgage industry understands this.
AI powered CRM, first party data and digital onboarding give lenders a once in a generation opportunity to pull borrowers into their own ecosystem permanently. In that world, the broker risks becoming a temporary middleman rather than a strategic partner.
So what should brokers do?
This isn’t about fear. It’s about provocation.
Brokers who survive the next phase won’t win by sourcing the cheapest rate, a comparison site can do that in seconds. They’ll win by doing the things lenders can’t easily automate.
That means moving from transaction to true advice. From product placement to financial planning. From ‘here’s the deal’ to challenging, professional conversations about how clients buy, keep and protect their home.
Interest rate risk. Longer-term certainty. Protection. Trade-offs. Behaviour. Outcomes.
If your only value as a broker is finding the cheapest deal, 2026 will be deeply uncomfortable.
In my view, this isn’t the end of the broker.
It’s the beginning of the end for brokers, and the start of the beginning for advisers.
