Bridgit is a tech-driven, non-bank lender revolutionising property lending via bridging loans with its simple online loan application, instant scenario workshopping, same day approvals and no monthly repayments. It empowers Australian property owners to unlock their property equity. In doing so, brokers can act fast and help their borrowers avoid missing out on opportunities to purchase their next property. Bridgit is designed ‘tech first’ to offer a better way of lending. With same-day approval, our technology helps Australians take the next step in their lives rather than putting them on hold while waiting for traditional, slow finance processes.
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Connective Lending is one of Australia’s leading providers of white label lending solutions, offering Connective brokers exclusive access to a broad and growing range of products across residential, commercial, SMSF and specialist solutions. By continuously expanding its portfolio, Connective Lending empowers brokers to deliver competitive, tailored solutions that meet the evolving needs of their clients.
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White label lending used to mean a lender’s product wearing someone else’s name. It increasingly means something else: purpose-built underwriting, warehouse funding and product mechanics designed for a specific client problem, sold under a badge a broker already trusts.
Bridgit and Connective Lending, two of the businesses helping build that channel, point to the same driver: brokers are being asked to solve messier problems than the mortgage industry was built around, and white label products are where those problems are getting solved first.
From bolt-on to purpose-built For most of the channel’s history, brokers built their white label business around whichever bank already sat on their panel, using standard mortgage products on standard timelines.
“Banks often treat bridging as an afterthought bolted onto a standard home loan, with months of processing and rigid income-servicing checks, which doesn’t work for someone who needs to move fast,” says Stephen Doyle, chief commercial officer at Bridgit.
“That gap is exactly where fintech non-banks like Bridgit have stepped in, with purpose-built underwriting and warehouse funding that can flex around scenarios banks simply aren’t built for,” says Doyle, nominating downsizers, off-the-plan buyers and clients going through a separation as examples.
Michael Goerner, head of Connective Lending, has watched a similar shift unfold at scale. Connective Lending was launched in 2015 with two prime residential products. It now spans more than 10 product ranges across more than 10 funders, including Bluestone, Pepper, Brighten, Thinktank and Bridgit, sitting alongside bank-funded products such as Connective Select with Bendigo Bank.
“The mix has tilted toward non-banks,” says Goerner. “Non-bank funders accounted for 83% of Connective Lending application volume in 2025, up from 50% the year before. Banks still anchor prime, but non-banks are driving the breadth.”
The Reserve Bank of Australia has tracked the same shift from its own vantage point. Its February 2026 Statement on Monetary Policy noted that non-bank lending has grown strongly in recent
years, including in market segments less well serviced by banks. While this contributed to improved credit availability, tighter conditions on the back of the Middle East conflict have made funding conditions for non-bank lenders more volatile. The latest Financial Stability Report also revealed that non-bank lenders still only account for around 6% of overall financial system assets.
The logo swap test What separates a white label product brokers keep recommending from one they quietly stop using comes down to a simple distinction: whether it was built for them or simply relabelled for them.
“Trust comes from service and consistency, and much of that sits with the people behind the portfolio,” says Goerner. “A rebadged product with a call centre behind it won’t earn repeat use. What earns it is dedicated BDM support with real expertise across the full range and access to decision-makers throughout the loan process, so deals get worked through and progressed rather than stuck in a queue. One phone call can surface three or more potential solutions for a client instead of the broker chasing several lenders,” he adds.
More than half of Connective’s network now uses Connective Lending, and the share of brokers writing three or more products through it has more than doubled since 2021.
Doyle frames the same problem from the funder’s side of the relationship. “Brokers spot a generic rebadge fast,” says Doyle. “A tailored strategy starts with the partner’s broker demographic and risk appetite: what deal sizes and scenarios does this network see most, how fast do their brokers need to move to stay competitive. The go-to-market approach, how it’s positioned, prioritised and activated, is built around those answers, not applied as a default template across every partner. That’s the difference between a logo swap and a strategy built for the partner in front of you.”
Panel or own brand The trust question feeds into a bigger structural one facing aggregators: whether to build proprietary white label products or lean on a panel of third-party funders.
“Partnering with a dedicated lender like Bridgit gives brokers same-day or 24-hour turnaround and product mechanics they can’t replicate internally, like no monthly repayments during the bridging period, without brokers taking on the credit or execution risk themselves,” says Doyle.
Connective runs both models at once. Most of its range is funded by partner lenders, while its first own-branded product, Connective Complete, is backed by Connective itself and serviced by RedZed.
“A broad panel gives brokers reach across more scenarios; an own-brand product gives more control over policy, pricing and the client
experience,” says Goerner. “White label, used well, is a growth strategy, not just another lender. When you can serve more of a client’s needs from one trusted source, you write more, retain more and build a more valuable business.”
The broker channel that this growth strategy depends on is going from strength to strength. Brokers settled 81.0% of all new residential home loans in the March 2026 quarter, a record for the MFAA’s Quarterly Market Share series. It marked a 4.2-percentage-point jump on the same quarter a year earlier, and an astounding 25.7 percentage points higher than broker market share in March 2018.
“We add a solution when brokers tell us they’re losing deals they can’t place,” says Goerner. Specialising and diversifying, he says, is not a binary choice: residential lending remains the core for most brokers, but the fastest-growing ones are using the breadth of the panel to spread revenue across a client’s different life stages, ‘so they don’t lose a client to another channel’.
Regulation sets the bar None of that breadth means much if a broker cannot show why a product suited the client in front of them, and both men point to the Best Interests Duty as the test that now shapes product design from the outset.
“Everything we design sits under the NCCP and Best Interests Duty, so regulation is the starting point, not an afterthought,” says Goerner. “When policy shifts, it flows through in two ways: product settings and credit policy are reviewed with our funders, and the guidance we give brokers is updated so they can keep recommending with confidence. BID has raised the bar. Brokers must show why a solution suits the client, so white label has to earn its place on genuine merit, not familiarity.”
Doyle agrees. “Best Interest Duty means brokers have to show tangible client benefit, not just headline rate, and bridging is a clean fit for that test,” says Doyle. “If a client needs speed to secure a property, wants to avoid a temporary rental or needs a structure with no repayments during the sale window, that’s a demonstrable benefit a broker can document. Digital application workflows and clear equity calculations give brokers the paper trail to back that recommendation up.”
Who is standing behind the badge Regulatory confidence is one thing. Brokers also want assurance that the funding behind a badge will not dry up when conditions tighten.
“Broker confidence comes down to knowing the liquidity behind a product won’t freeze when markets move,” says Doyle. Bridgit is funded through institutional warehouse facilities, which support fixed setup fees, set terms of 12 to 24 months and have no hidden exit penalties, letting brokers quote with certainty rather than caveats.
Goerner points to a similar principle playing out across a broader panel. “Funding comes from a spread of bank and non-bank balance sheets and wholesale funding lines, and that diversity is a strength,” he says. “It spreads risk and keeps pricing competitive across a wider set of scenarios.” This way, a broker’s confidence in recommending a product comes down to whether it will be there, and perform, for the life of the loan.
Where the channel heads next Both expect white label lending to keep expanding its share of how brokers serve clients, though they frame the path there differently.
“[I expect white label lending to become] bigger, clearly,” says Goerner. As banks tighten criteria and client needs get more complex, brokers need somewhere to place deals that do not fit the mainstream. But for that to happen, white label has to keep proving itself on service and outcomes rather than price alone, and aggregators have to keep investing in support and education.
“The brokers who treat white label as part of how they serve every client, not a last resort, are the ones building the most durable businesses,” he says.
Doyle sees the same trajectory and a world where non-bank products are the norm and not simply a back-up option.
“Specialist lending, bridging finance especially, is heading toward becoming a standard tool in the broker’s kit rather than a fallback for when the bank says no,” Doyle says. “Getting there needs three things: streamlined digital applications so brokers can run bridging scenarios during client discovery instead of as an afterthought, 24-hour conditional approval becoming the norm rather than the exception, and more broker education so equity-rich clients know they don’t have to wait for a sale to make their next move.”
Widening the shelf That growth strategy depends on brokers having somewhere to send clients who fall outside a standard home loan, and the shelf of white label products has widened accordingly.
“The shift is away from commoditised 30-year prime loans toward solving a specific problem,” says Doyle. “Margin competition on vanilla refinances is intense, so the real value now sits in transitional lending: downsizers, retirees and self-employed buyers who are equity-rich but get blocked by standard bank income tests.”
Connective has pushed the range further still, into commercial, SMSF, bridging, reverse mortgages, lending for expats and non-residents, construction finance and, more recently, SME working capital.
Published 31 Aug 2026
Proportion of new residential lending settled by brokers (2018–2026)
Source: MFAA Quarterly Market Share Report
Mar 2018
Dec 2024
Mar 2025
Jun 2025
Sep 2025
Dec 2025
Mar 2026
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
55.3%
76%
76.8%
77.6%
77.3%
76.7%
81%
Non-bank share of housing credit
Non-bank share of business credit
Non-bank market share
Year to Jan 2026
Around 4%
Around
11%
Source: Reserve Bank of Australia Financial Stability Report, Mar 2026
Overall non-bank share of financial system assets
Around
6%
“Margin competition on vanilla refinances is intense, so the real value now sits in transitional lending: downsizers, retirees and self-employed buyers who are equity-rich but get blocked by standard bank income tests”
Stephen Doyle,
Bridgit
“The brokers who treat white label as part of how they serve every client, not a last resort, are the ones building the most durable businesses”
Michael Goerner,
Connective Lending
Michael Goerner
Connective Lending
Stephen Doyle
Bridgit
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White label lending sheds its rebadged bank reputation
Bridgit and Connective Lending explain how purpose-built underwriting, dedicated funding and direct broker input are reshaping what sits behind the badge brokers recommend to clients
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Michael Goerner is head of Connective Lending, one of Australia’s leading providers of white label lending solutions. A long-standing figure in the mortgage industry, Goerner leads the team behind Connective Lending’s portfolio of more than 10 product ranges, spanning residential, commercial, SMSF and specialist lending, funded by a panel of more than 10 bank and non-bank partners. Goerner is a regular commentator on white-label lending, broker diversification and the growing role of non-bank funding.
Connective Lending
Michael Goerner
Stephen Doyle is chief commercial officer at Bridgit, leading distribution and broker partnerships for the non-bank lender’s innovative bridging solutions. With more than 25 years of experience in financial services, he has held senior roles across lending and third party distribution. At Bridgit, Doyle focuses on simplifying bridging finance for brokers and their clients, championing faster, more flexible digital lending experiences that help customers buy before they sell.
Bridgit
Stephen Doyle