We are a small business who serves small businesses. We were founded for that purpose and have been doing so for almost a decade, and so we recognise the importance of being agile and responsive through the cycles. We currently find ourselves in a time of...

I started my year with a scary experience. Whilst ocean swimming early one morning with friends beyond the breakers, I lost my form - and then my nerve. With my friends out of sight and shouting range, I decided to make my way back to the...

In our business, we often get enquiries from people who think we deal in second-hand literary books. At TrailBlazer Finance, we actually buy, sell and lend against trail books – which are not even close to story books. But these mistaken phone calls to our office...

A pinball machine sits in the reception of our offices. For stress relief, I am rather partial to the occasional game. It struck me that pinball is an ideal metaphor for mortgage broking: brokers are like the ball - constantly being bumped around at the whim...

The Royal Commission was charged with uncovering misconduct in the banking and wider financial services industry. The major banks were intended to be the primary target of the investigations. Instead, it seems the innocent bystander – the mortgage broker – stands accused. Not of wrongdoing, but...

Within hours of the Hayne Royal commission’s final report being handed down, I was inundated with calls from clients and interested parties, all of the mortgage brokers. Although their words were different, there was a common theme: “Should I be worried? What has happened to the...