Mortgage broker loan processing, parabroking and VA services in Australia, honestly compared

We run one of the services on this list. DotVA places offshore VAs from 10 hours a week, every week. If you write a few loans a month, a per-file processing service is the better buy: you pay per application, a month with no lodgements costs you nothing, and there is no one to train. That is the most useful thing we can tell you, so it comes first.

The method is the same as our comparison of Australian VA agencies. Every claim about another provider comes from its own website (for Alaya, its sister company Home Loan Experts’ page), checked on 11 November 2026 and linked in the table. Where a figure is not published we write “not stated publicly” rather than guess, and where a site does not say where its team is, we do not assume.

If you are earlier than shortlisting and want to see what a VA does across a loan file, start with our mortgage broker page.

The services at a glance

Service	What it is	Published price	Where the team is	Software named	Terms
DotVA mortgage broker virtual assistant (that’s us)	Managed offshore VA: one dedicated person who works to your direction	$12-17/hr admin, $18-25/hr specialist (loan processor), AUD ex GST, from 10 hrs/week	Philippines, working Australian business hours	ApplyOnline, MyCRM, Mercury Nexus, Salestrekker, BrokerEngine, AFG Flex	No lock-in contract; stop any time in the first 14 days, then 30 days’ notice; free replacement any time; $500 deposit, credited to your first invoice
Mortgage Broker Assist	Per-file loan processing, plus dedicated assistants, full-time or part-time	Per file: lodgement only $160 + GST; lodge and track $270 + GST; full file processing $500 + GST “depending on complexity”; dedicated packages not stated publicly	Back-office team in Bangladesh, under Australian management	Salestrekker, BrokerEngine, Flex, MyCRM, Mercury; ApplyOnline	”No lock-in contracts”; no minimum volume
xSource	Per-application loan processing, plus a monthly parabroker	Per application: lodgement $209; lodge and track $279; full service on enquiry (add 10% GST). Parabroker: $5,500 + GST a month full-time; $3,000 + GST or $2,750 + GST a month part-time (hours not stated)	Staff location not stated on the pages we read; it says it has offices in Australia and Serbia	”Next Gen (Apply Online) data entry”; no broker CRM named on the pages we read	Loan processing: no minimum volume; it advertises a “100% money-back guarantee” (conditions not stated). Parabroking: “no lock-in contracts”
Brokers’ BackOffice	Per-application loan processing, plus a dedicated loan processor	Not stated publicly: “Fixed fee for each loan application”, or a team member for 20 or 40 hours a week	India; the firm describes itself as Sydney based	ApplyOnline; “all major CRMs”; none named in its own copy (a client testimonial mentions Mercury)	Per application: no monthly minimum volume, “No binding contracts”. Dedicated: “no long-term contractual commitments”
We Do VAs	Dedicated VA for finance brokers; its mortgage page says the VA “works full-time for your business only”; its services page says “a few hours a week or a full-time desk”	Not stated publicly; quoted on hours, tasks and experience level	Philippines, on Australian business hours	ApplyOnline, Connective, Mercury, Symmetry, Salestrekker, AdviserLogic	Mortgage page: “No lock-in, easy to adjust or walk away”. Services FAQ: “Our contracts run on a 1-year term”, with an option to renew or terminate
VA Platinum	Dedicated assistant, “full-time or part-time, not a shared pool”	Not stated publicly: a fixed monthly rate, quoted after a discovery call	Country not stated on its mortgage page, which describes the assistants as offshore	ApplyOnline; no CRM named	Not stated on the pages we read
Alaya	Sister company of the brokerage Home Loan Experts; full-time support staff	Not stated publicly; the Home Loan Experts page says “you won’t be charged per deal”; its site gives an example of “approximately $34,800” a year in Nepal against AUD $74,800 in Australia	Nepal	ApplyOnline	Not stated on the pages we read
SuperRecords	Mortgage processing team: full-time, part-time or pay-per-job	Not stated publicly; its general FAQ says “a fixed fee per job” with volume discounts	Described as offshore; country not stated on the pages we read	Flex, BrokerEngine, Mercury, MyCRM	Not stated on the pages we read
Tarino	Recruiter: you hire and pay the person directly	Recruitment fee: $5,000 once excl GST ($250 search fee plus $4,750 on hire), then no monthly fee to Tarino. The hire’s pay is separate: its mortgage page gives “Typical remuneration $1,600 a month, paid to your hire”	Philippines-based hires	ApplyOnline, Mercury, MyCRM, Salestrekker, BrokerEngine, Infynity	No lock-in; replacement search within 6 months, same role
LMG Outsource	The aggregator LMG’s own back-office support, full-time or per file; LMG says the per-file On-Demand service is available to all brokers across LMG and Loan Market	Not stated publicly	LMG refers to its offshore operations team; country not stated	MyCRM; ApplyOnline not named in the article	On-Demand: “There are no lock-ins and support can be switched on as needed”
Cloudstaff	Offshore staff for mortgage brokers; its page lists “full-time, part-time, contract and project work”	Not stated on its mortgage broking page, which points to its Team Builder tool	Country not stated on its Australian mortgage broking page	None named in the page text	Not stated on the pages we read
Beepo	Outsourced staffing provider with loan processor roles	Not stated publicly: “a simple monthly fee”	Philippines: its page refers to “Outsourcing your loan processing to the Philippines” and lists an office in Clark Freeport Zone	None named (it lists data entry in CRM)	Not stated on the page we read
CN Global	Full-time mortgage broker assistant roles	A rate card is shown as an image, in AUD by role; unit and GST basis not stated	Staff location not stated in so many words; it describes itself as based in Sydney, Melbourne and Colombo, Sri Lanka	AOL (ApplyOnline) and Simpology	Not stated on the pages we read

Checked on each provider’s own pages on 11 November 2026. “Not stated publicly” means we could not find the figure on the provider’s public pages; it is an observation, not a criticism.

Our row in full is on pricing. If a 30-minute call beats ten tabs, book a discovery call, and if another row fits your business better we will tell you on the call.

Four products, one search term

1. Per-file loan processing (Mortgage Broker Assist, xSource, Brokers’ BackOffice, SuperRecords’ pay-per-job model, LMG Outsource). You send a file, a team processes it and you pay per application. Packages are tiered by how far the team takes the file: lodgement only, lodge and track, or the full file. Mortgage Broker Assist, xSource and Brokers’ BackOffice each state there is no minimum volume.
2. A monthly parabroker or dedicated processor (xSource’s parabroking, Mortgage Broker Assist’s dedicated assistants, Brokers’ BackOffice at 20 or 40 hours a week). A monthly or quoted fee for a person or desk. xSource’s parabroking list goes beyond data entry: lender policy research, borrowing capacity calculations, document verification and pipeline management.
3. A dedicated VA from a staffing provider (DotVA, We Do VAs, VA Platinum, Alaya, Cloudstaff, Beepo, CN Global). A person or role placed with your business by a provider that bills you for them. With us that is one dedicated person who works to your direction and whom we engage and pay. The scope is wider than the file: inbox, CRM notes, client updates and the back book. We place from 10 hours a week. Alaya and CN Global describe full-time roles; VA Platinum and Cloudstaff say full-time or part-time; We Do VAs’ mortgage page says full-time and its services page says “a few hours a week or a full-time desk”.
4. A recruiter (Tarino). You pay a one-off recruitment fee, then hire and pay the person yourself; their pay is separate from the fee. You take on the management and the risk if they leave.

What it costs at different volumes

Where we have multiplied, that is our arithmetic, not the provider’s figure. All figures are before GST, and our monthly figures use 4.33 weeks.

Option	Published price	What that comes to
Mortgage Broker Assist, per file	$160 lodgement only, $270 lodge and track, $500 full file (may vary with complexity)	Three files a month: $480, $810 or $1,500. Ten files: $1,600, $2,700 or $5,000. Full-file totals may vary with complexity
xSource, per application	$209 lodgement, $279 lodge and track	Three a month: $627 or $837. Ten: $2,090 or $2,790
xSource parabroker	$5,500 a month full-time; $3,000 or $2,750 part-time	A flat monthly fee (hours not stated)
DotVA admin VA	$12-17/hr	10 hours a week: about $520-736 a month
DotVA loan processor	$18-25/hr	10 hours a week: about $780-1,083 a month. 15 hours: about $1,169-1,624. 40 hours: about $3,118-4,330
Tarino	$5,000 recruitment fee once, plus the hire’s pay, which is separate: Tarino gives “Typical remuneration $1,600 a month”	On that typical figure, about $24,200 in the first year, then $19,200 a year (hours not stated)

Mortgage Broker Assist’s home page also advertises free files at volume, which would lower its totals.

At two or three files a month, per-file is the better buy. Lodge and track comes to $540-837 for the month, you pay nothing when you lodge nothing, and there is no one to train or manage. Our 10-hour minimum runs every week whether you lodge or not. By ten files a month the per-file totals overlap what a dedicated person costs for 15 to 40 hours a week, and the question becomes what else you want that person to do. A per-file fee is tied to an application. Fixed-rate expiry lists, annual review bookings, CRM clean-up and the inbox are not.

How to compare them

1. Count your files. Take the last six months of lodgements. Under four or five a month, or lumpy, points to per-file. Steady volume points to a person.
2. List the work that is not a file. Repricing, expiry lists, annual reviews, discharge requests, compliance file notes. If that list is long, a per-file service leaves it with you.
3. Ask about your software by name. Check the provider has worked in your aggregator’s CRM as well as ApplyOnline. The table shows who names which.
4. Ask where the people and the data are. Several rows in the table do not say where the people doing the work are.
5. Ask who reviews before lodgement. The answer should be you.
6. Read the contract as well as the marketing page. Ask for the term and the notice period in writing.

Licensing: what ASIC’s guidance says about clerical work

This is general information, not legal advice. It draws on ASIC’s Regulatory Guide 203, Do I need a credit licence?, which is guidance for people who may engage in credit activities and says of itself that it “does not constitute legal advice”. Whether a support person needs to be licensed or authorised depends on what they do and on who engages them: a licensee’s employee, a credit representative, or a third party’s contractor. Take advice from your licensee or your aggregator’s compliance team before you give anyone access to a file.

What ASIC says a clerk may do. RG 203.123 says you will not need to be licensed or authorised “if you are a clerk or cashier and you engage in the activity in the ordinary course of your activities as a clerk or cashier”. In RG 203.124 ASIC says activities ordinarily engaged in by clerks and cashiers “may include” distributing documents such as credit guides, answering routine questions with factual information, and “performing the routine or administrative functions of receiving loan or lease documentation, passing documentation on to the consumer to be signed, returning signed documentation to the prospective credit provider or lessor, and processing completed documents”. ASIC notes the list is not definitive. RG 203 does not define “clerk”, refers to people “employed as clerks and cashiers”, and does not say whether a contractor engaged through an outsourcing provider counts as one.

Where the exemption stops. RG 203.125: “if you assist the consumer to complete an application form by explaining particular terms of the loan documentation or advising what information the consumer should include in the application, you may not be covered by this exemption.” In ASIC’s Example 17, the clerk of a finance broker is likely covered when showing the consumer where to sign, photocopying supporting documents, taking receipt of upfront application fees and sending the application on. If the consumer asks the clerk what to include about their expenses and liabilities and the clerk answers “instead of asking the broker to provide an answer, the exemption would not apply”, and ASIC says the clerk would then need to be authorised as a credit representative.

Compiling an application. RG 203.69 says assisting a consumer to apply for credit can include helping them “complete the application form by providing guidance on what information to include in the application”. RG 203.70 also says that if you “identify and compile particular information to include in the application” you “may be providing credit assistance”, with a note that a clerk doing some of these things in the ordinary course of a clerk’s activities may be covered by the exemption.

Acting as an intermediary. RG 203.72 says ASIC considers a person “may act as an intermediary” if they are a go-between “who prepares or passes on information” and whose role is “wholly or partially, engaged in for the purpose of securing a provision of credit”. RG 203.73 adds: “You do not need to deal directly with the consumer or with the credit provider or lessor to be an intermediary.”

Who engages the person. RG 203.6 says a credit licence is not needed by an authorised credit representative acting on behalf of a licensed principal, or by an employee or director of a licensed principal engaging in credit activities on the principal’s behalf. RG 203 has no passage on outsourced or offshore support staff, so where a provider’s contractor or your own overseas hire sits is a question for your licensee or your aggregator’s compliance team.

What the providers say. On the pages we read, none of the providers in this guide says its processing staff hold a credit representative authorisation. We Do VAs says “you remain responsible for the advice and decisions related to the file”, and Tarino says “credit assistance, lender selection, the best interests assessment and sign-off on every file remain with your broker”. Alaya’s site footer shows “Authorised Credit Representative 495247 under Australian Credit Licence: 383528” without naming who holds it.

Our own rule. Our VAs key, collect, chase and track. They do not suggest a lender, compare products with a client or advise a client what to put in an application. Those questions go to the broker under a written escalation rule, and the broker reviews every application before lodgement. That is our policy, not a statement of what the law requires of your arrangement.

Privacy: a loan file is sensitive

Giving an overseas assistant access to client information is, in most cases, a cross-border disclosure under APP 8 of the Australian Privacy Principles: you must take reasonable steps to make sure the overseas recipient handles the information in line with the APPs, and you generally remain accountable if they do not. That applies to every offshore option on this page, ours included, where the Privacy Act applies to your business. Our guide to hiring an offshore VA legally covers the obligations.

Some providers say they are ISO 27001 certified, among them xSource, Mortgage Broker Assist and SuperRecords. We do not hold one. Our data security page sets out what we do: a signed confidentiality agreement before day one, every credential shared through a password manager, access scoped to what the task needs, and access revoked at offboarding. Our VAs work on their own computers, not a managed-device fleet, and you can layer your own controls on top, such as virtual desktops or IP restrictions. You decide what each VA can touch, so you can keep the credit report itself out of their access.

Who should pick whom

• Two or three loans a month, or lumpy volume: a per-file service. Mortgage Broker Assist publishes $160-500 plus GST a file (the $500 full-file price depends on complexity) and xSource $209-279 plus GST an application. Brokers’ BackOffice quotes a fixed fee per application on enquiry, and SuperRecords offers a pay-per-job model.
• You are with LMG or Loan Market: look at LMG Outsource first, since it is your aggregator’s own service.
• A parabroker for policy research and borrowing capacity work: xSource, at a published $5,500 plus GST a month full-time.
• A dedicated processor on a quoted fee: Brokers’ BackOffice (20 or 40 hours a week) or Mortgage Broker Assist (full-time or part-time).
• A dedicated VA from a provider that says it started as finance brokers: We Do VAs. Confirm the contract term in writing, as you should with any provider.
• A staffing provider that places dedicated staff by the role: VA Platinum, Alaya, Cloudstaff, Beepo or CN Global.
• A direct hire you are happy to engage and manage yourself: Tarino. Its $5,000 is the recruitment fee and the hire’s pay is separate. On its typical $1,600 a month plus the one-off $5,000, it will usually cost less over a year or more than a managed service at 40 hours a week, ours included (Tarino does not state the hours behind its figure).
• 10 to 30 hours a week from one dedicated person, managed for you, at a published hourly rate: that is where DotVA fits. See what the work looks like on our mortgage broker and loan processor pages, or by software: Mercury Nexus and Salestrekker.

Run your own numbers

Price your hours on the VA cost calculator and check our tiers on pricing. Commercial and asset finance brokers have their own page. If the right answer for your business is one of the other names in the table, we would rather you find that out now than in month two.