Frollo for Brokers: A deep dive into Open Banking success

Featuring Nicole Cannon, CEO of Pink Finance, and Renee Blethyn, Head of Broker Partnerships at NextGen

What if you could cut verification time from two hours to 15 minutes, eliminate client concerns about sharing bank passwords, and position your business as a progressive industry leader—all at zero cost? In a revealing Broker Daily Spotlight podcast, Nicole Cannon from Pink Finance shares exactly how she’s done this by embracing Open Banking with Frollo for Brokers. Joined by Renee Blethyn from NextGen, this conversation delivers real-world insights into why early adopters are experiencing dramatic efficiency gains and calling it a “no-brainer.”

Driving efficiency with Open Banking

Pink Finance is a residential mortgage broking firm that recently expanded by acquiring several portfolios, nearly doubling their books under management. For Nicole and her team, efficiency has become paramount, particularly when collecting and verifying data for the living expenses component of applications.

“We’re learning more and more as we’ve used Frollo through the ApplyOnline^®              process,” Nicole explained. “With more lenders taking it on board and using the financial passport within their systems, we’re having to do less uploading to ApplyOnline because we’re using the Open Banking system. It’s been a really positive experience for our clients, but also my team as well.”

Since the official launch of Frollo for Brokers earlier this year in June, Renee noted that awareness around Open Banking is definitely accelerating across the industry, driven by a combination of consumer behaviour changes and brokers’ increasing concern about data security.

Incorporating Open Banking into business processes

One of the most striking revelations was Pink Finance’s wholehearted adoption of the technology. “We only use Frollo now, so we don’t give our clients any other option,” Nicole stated confidently.

The shift came after corporate data leakages made clients increasingly concerned about entering their account numbers and passwords. “This was a really great solution to that, because the way we explain it to our clients is you don’t have to enter your passwords anymore. It’s two-factor authentication and via the clients banking apps.”

The process is remarkably simple: brokers only need to enter the client’s email address. Nicole highlighted several practical benefits:

• Pre-approval renewals: With documents already on file, they only need payslips rather than complete documentation packages
• Real-time updates: When a client received a bonus, they could provide confirmation through Open Banking rather than chasing documents
• Reduced document collection: For clients with accounts at multiple lenders, the platform eliminates the hassle of collecting numerous statements

“Having access to instant data for a client who receives a bonus, we’re able to provide their updated confirmation that the bonus came through via Open Banking, rather than going ‘give me the payslip, give me the bank statement’ because we’ve actually got that data live. And that’s been truly, truly valuable.”

Before adopting Frollo for Brokers, only 40-50% of clients were using available banking solutions, which meant the team had to manually perform income and living expense verification—a time-consuming task. Now, the platform is fully incorporated into their workflow, with clients receiving a direct link and user guide that emphasises the security benefits of Open Banking over traditional methods.

The Frollo app and integration with Frollo for Brokers

NextGen’s 2020 acquisition of Frollo brought with it a successful free consumer app focused on helping Australians manage their budgets and “feel good about money.” The personal financial management (PFM) app supports over 145,000 Australians to take control of their finances, manage expenses, and reach goals like saving for a home or paying down debt.

Initially, when Frollo for Brokers launched, there wasn’t an app integration. However, some of Nicole’s clients organically downloaded the app themselves—without any promotion. This consumer-led discovery became one of the platform’s success stories and helped shape its development.

The integration works seamlessly: consumers can download the app and connect all their accounts, whether they’re new or existing users. If they’re working with a broker registered for Frollo for Brokers, they can simply look up their broker’s email address and share their data directly.

The app is branded as Frollo and isn’t white-labelled under broker businesses, which is part of how NextGen keeps the service at zero cost to brokers. Importantly, there’s no conflict of interest—the app doesn’t generate leads for other products or include marketing for competing services.

Nicole sees tremendous value in the app, particularly for first-home buyers. “I’m now doing the second generation of my clients and helping their children get into their first homes,” she shared. For younger clients interested in purchasing within the next year or two, the app provides a way to understand spending habits and calculate comfortable repayment levels before committing to a mortgage.

Looking ahead to 2026, Pink Finance plans to roll out an education platform, and the Frollo app will be a key component of their toolkit for planning and future-proofing clients.

Increasing efficiency, reducing risk and fraud

Renee emphasised that it’s not just about protecting clients through safe data sharing—it’s also about brokers protecting their own businesses in terms of how they receive and store client information. From an aggregator perspective, NextGen now has three aggregator groups that have incorporated the solution into their CRMs, largely driven by their desire to protect brokers operating within their networks.

Nicole highlighted how positioning the technology has been crucial to client acceptance. Pink Finance emphasises that through government regulation and Open Banking, they’re using the most secure method to collect bank statements. “Being able to say we were one of the first to adopt it promotes that Pink Finance is a very progressive firm in terms of using technology at the forefront of protecting data,” she noted.

The fraud prevention aspect is particularly significant. “It minimises cases where you know, fraudulent bank statements and things like that,” Nicole explained. “The fact that it’s come through the app, and it’s documented that way, then it’s protection for everybody.”

Renee pointed to the strong trust relationship that brokers build with clients as a key factor in successful adoption. When brokers feel confident because they understand the benefits to their business and their clients, that confidence translates to client comfort with new services.

One particularly effective strategy was prioritisation: Pink Finance lets clients know that if they use Frollo for Brokers, their application is prioritised over other clients because it makes the process easier and faster.

Lenders embracing Open Banking and benefits for brokers

The future of Open Banking in the mortgage industry looks increasingly promising, with major lenders beginning to integrate the technology into their processes. Early adopters among major lenders—including CBA, the Westpac Group, and NAB—have incorporated Open Banking into their versions of ApplyOnline platforms. Future enhancements will mean that brokers will have prioritised service for applications where Open Banking data has been used.

One development that particularly excited both Nicole and Renee is income verification. The goal is to deliver value for the data points captured through Open Banking, making it easier for brokers to utilise information without necessarily providing payslips for particular segments. Lenders will be able to verify data within the application, providing faster time to approval while protecting against fraud.

Nicole has already seen these benefits in action. When using certain lenders through ApplyOnline with the Frollo integration, the system verifies everything automatically. “Sometimes if we’ve seen there’s $24,000 sitting in a savings account, they will adjust it to $24,083,” she noted. “So it gets to the exact dollar at that exact point of time. But then it means we don’t have to upload those documents because it’s verified.”

These small efficiencies add up significantly. “We’re now finding that it’s saving the team just those little things of updating, verifying. Those one percenters—we can do 1% and 1% and 1%, and save our process time,” Nicole explained.

The road ahead

Looking to the future, Nicole was emphatic about her commitment to the platform. “As Frollo for Brokers rolls out different versions, we will definitely be on the uptake,” she stated. “It has helped the efficiencies so much for us. Living expense verification—it’s all very simple and easy. It’s ten, 15 minutes now compared to one or two hours, and that’s massive.”

When you multiply those time savings across ten, 15, or 20 files, the impact becomes substantial. “Any part where we can save time, we can reduce risk, and especially protect us against fraud or data leaks—it’s a no-brainer for us,” Nicole emphasised. “There’s no other way that I would like to use any other applications because I think Frollo for Brokers provides that service.”

The fact that the service costs nothing is also significant in an industry where brokers juggle numerous necessary applications and subscription costs. “If I can help the profit of the business, then it’s a win-win-win situation,” Nicole concluded.

The message to the broader broking community is clear: Open Banking isn’t just coming—it’s here, and early adopters are already reaping significant benefits in efficiency, security, and client service. As Nicole put it, “It’s a no-brainer.”

To learn more about Frollo for Brokers, visit frollo.com.au/brokers