Mortgage Broker CPD Requirements and Records

Mortgage broker continuing professional development (CPD) keeps your knowledge current for the credit work you perform. Credit representatives providing third-party home loan credit assistance must complete 20 hours each year under Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) guidance. Professional membership and your licensee’s training plan can add separate requirements.

A useful CPD record shows what you learned and how it applies to your role. Record each requirement separately, then connect eligible learning to it. An annual attendance total can meet an hours target while leaving a practical knowledge gap unresolved.

Map CPD Requirements by Role

Map your CPD requirements from your actual credit role, licence conditions and membership terms before choosing courses. A credit representative, a licensee employee and a responsible manager can have different obligations even when each works as a mortgage broker.

ASIC’s credit representative guidance, updated in May 2025, gives the 20-hour annual requirement for representatives providing third-party home loan credit assistance. The licensee must also keep representatives adequately trained and competent throughout their appointment.

ASIC’s Regulatory Guide 206 separates organisational competence from representative training. As at October 2026, its role distinctions include the following.

Role or activity	Requirement owner and treatment
Australian credit licensee	Maintain organisational competence and ensure representatives are trained and competent under sections 47(1)(f) and 47(1)(g) of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009
Responsible manager	ASIC RG 206.71 expects at least 20 CPD hours annually, recorded under the licence condition
Representative providing third-party home loan credit assistance	At least 20 CPD hours annually. RG 206 includes staff as well as authorised representatives
Other representative	Licensee determines and documents training suited to the role. the home loan figure isn’t a universal minimum for all credit activities

For Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) members, the current CPD requirements are 30 hours per membership renewal year, as at October 2026. Searches for MFAA CPD points lead to a requirement expressed in hours. The renewal year isn’t automatically the calendar or financial year.

Keep a separate requirements sheet for each person. Enter the rule owner, applicable role, period start and end, required hours or points, category limits, evidence standard and approving person. Add the current version of the licensee or aggregator training policy and each applicable membership rule.

Record carry-over permission only where the applicable terms expressly allow it. Set up each period with its own activities and totals so unused hours don’t automatically roll into the next year. Keep initial qualifications separate from annual learning. the mortgage broker qualifications guide covers entry requirements.

Build a Role-Specific Learning Plan

Build the learning plan around errors and changes that affect the person’s credit work. A broker who misreads income evidence needs different learning from a responsible manager reviewing supervision controls.

Use file reviews, complaints, incident findings and policy updates as dated triggers. New products and demonstrated knowledge gaps can also create learning objectives. Give each objective an observable result and a reviewer who can assess it.

This fictional plan turns a file-review finding into training you can evaluate.

Plan field	Example entry
Person and role	Alex Chen, credit representative providing third-party home loan assistance
Trigger	2 October 2026 file review: two files confuse income eligibility with the amount accepted in servicing
Learning objective	Explain the difference on a fictional self-employed refinance and support each conclusion with a dated policy source
Activity	Facilitated policy workshop followed by a written scenario exercise
Due date and reviewer	16 October 2026. Priya Shah, supervising broker
Expected evidence	Policy extracts, Alex’s reasoning, assessor feedback and a corrected answer
Follow-up	Review the next two relevant files under supervision

Choose activities for the knowledge they teach before assigning credit. A general sales webinar won’t close Alex’s income-assessment gap just because it has an attendance certificate. The responsible manager’s plan can separately address why the review process failed to catch the mistake earlier.

Put control ownership and review triggers in the mortgage broker compliance manual. Keep the individual learning objective and its completion evidence in the training register.

Check Eligible Activities and Overlapping Credit

Classify each activity against every requirement you intend to credit, because the same learning can receive different treatment under different rules. Formal education, webinars, reading, mentoring and assessed practice need their own eligibility decision.

ASIC’s RG 206 activity guidance, as at October 2026, caps recent seminar videos at 10 hours annually. Internal role-relevant training mustn’t form the majority of CPD. ASIC generally doesn’t regard private study as adequate unless it uses purpose-designed audio or visual material.

The MFAA’s published categories, as at October 2026, include these limits. They sit within its 30-hour annual requirement, not above it.

MFAA activity category	Published renewal-year limit
Courses and workshops, including webinars	25 hours
Lender, aggregator or partner business development manager meetings	12 hours
Reading and research	6 hours
Mentoring, for mentor or mentee	18 hours

The Finance Brokers Association of Australasia (FBAA) has separate activity allocations, as at October 2026. Its table caps self-education at 6 hours, mentoring at 15 hours and professional development days or workshops at 12 hours per renewal year. An MFAA allocation doesn’t establish an FBAA allocation.

Aggregator events can have distinct association recognition. For example, Connective’s 2025 professional development days list separate MFAA and FBAA codes for the same event. Use the code for the actual activity and association, together with attendance evidence.

Record a single activity once, with separate credit decisions underneath it. In a fictional one-hour live lender-policy webinar, Alex’s licensee approves one relevant hour and the MFAA allocation permits one hour. Each register shows one hour against its own requirement. the webinar still occupies one hour of Alex’s time.

Don’t enter it twice within the same requirement because it has two providers’ names or because Alex watches the recording again. Where applicable terms prohibit repeat credit, exclude that repeat from the total. Apply each body’s category cap and period separately before counting the activity across requirements.

An internally assessed exercise can demonstrate learning without receiving the same CPD allocation as a recognised course. Record actual learning time separately from approved credit. Keep mentoring evidence linked to the broker mentoring record without treating annual CPD as proof that the mentoring programme is complete.

Run and Assess Policy Training

Assess policy training by asking the broker to explain a fictional file from current source wording through to a supported next step. Attendance shows participation. the written answer shows whether the broker can apply the learning.

For Alex’s exercise, use a fictional borrower who has run a business for 18 months, receives rental income and wants a refinance with additional cash. These facts create several policy questions without assuming any lender will accept the file. Use a lender’s actual current documents for the assessment, with the lender and document date recorded.

1. Find the source for each issue. Record the lender, document title, effective or publication date, retrieval date and relevant page or policy section.
2. Extract the eligibility rule and its exclusions. Explain how trading history, income evidence and cash-out purpose affect this fictional file.
3. Separate eligibility from servicing. Show which income is eligible, how much the lender counts and which servicing inputs still need verification.
4. Separate written policy from discretion. Label an exception pathway and record the question that needs a lender decision before treating it as available.
5. Write the next action. Identify missing evidence, unresolved ambiguity and the person who must answer it before the file progresses.

Bulma’s Policy Advisor quotes the lender policy behind each answer, so you can retain that wording with the exercise. The assessor can compare the broker’s reasoning with the source. Bulma’s displayed policy date is its last update date, which is distinct from a lender document’s publication date.

Use an assessment checklist that requires correct source selection, correct application of exclusions and a defensible next action. Require the broker to explain why a positive servicing figure doesn’t establish policy eligibility or loan approval.

In this fictional assessment, Alex correctly identifies the trading-history question but overlooks the cash-out purpose restriction in the source. The reviewer records that error and assigns a supervised second exercise before Alex handles that issue alone. Retain the original answer, feedback and reassessment so the record shows what changed.

Keep the CPD and Training Register

Keep one activity record with linked evidence and a separate allocation for each requirement it satisfies. The register must distinguish hours claimed from hours approved and learning completed from competence demonstrated.

You can use these fields as a spreadsheet or training-system record. The example continues Alex’s fictional exercise. its internal approval doesn’t award association credit.

Register field	Fictional example
Person and role	Alex Chen. credit representative. third-party home loan assistance
Activity ID, title and date	AC-2026-014. policy workshop and assessment. 9 October 2026
Provider and facilitator	Harbour Brokerage. Priya Shah
Topic and relevance	Income eligibility, servicing and cash-out purpose. responds to 2 October file-review finding
Actual learning time	1.5 hours, excluding breaks
Hours or points claimed	1.5 hours for licensee training plan
Requirement credited	Licensee-approved internal training category. no association credit entered
Period and category balance	2026 training year. add to existing internal-training total before approval
Source evidence	Dated lender extracts, course outline and attendance record stored under AC-2026-014
Learning and assessment evidence	Original written answer, feedback and reassessment linked to the same ID
Result and reviewer	Initial assessment incomplete. Priya Shah. supervised follow-up due 16 October
Credit status	Submitted. approval follows eligibility and category-limit review

Attach certificates, attendance confirmations and course outlines where available. Add notes describing what the broker learned, plus the assessment or file-review evidence showing how it was applied. A certificate without a topic or duration can leave the credit claim unsupported.

Retain source versions with the activity so later policy changes don’t erase what was taught. Use access controls for personal training records and remove real client details from exercises. Export enough information for the licensee or membership reviewer to follow each total back to its evidence.

The MFAA and FBAA comparison explains where member CPD fits within the wider association choice. Keep your association’s record linked to the training register so a membership declaration doesn’t replace the licence evidence.

Review Completion and Competence Gaps

Reconcile approved hours and competence evidence before each requirement’s deadline. Review the register during the year so missing evidence or a category cap leaves time for corrective learning.

Compare each person’s total with the correct period and requirement. Deduct rejected or duplicate entries, apply category caps and separate activities completed outside the period. Record the reason for every changed allocation and who approves it.

If an activity lacks attendance proof, obtain the provider’s record or keep the claim excluded until the evidence supports it. If the reviewer rejects its relevance, assign learning that addresses the role’s actual work. Don’t relabel an unrelated activity to fill an hours shortfall.

Treat a failed assessment as a competence issue even when the annual hours target is complete. Record the corrective activity and the supervision or restriction on relevant work. Give that control an owner, a reassessment date and a clear condition for ending it.

In Alex’s fictional case, the supervisor checks the second exercise and the next two relevant files. The restriction ends when Alex correctly distinguishes the written rule, servicing result and exception request on those records. If the error repeats, keep supervision in place and revise the learning objective.

Carry recurring review findings and policy updates into the next learning plan. Keep induction, mentoring completion and annual CPD evidence as distinct records with links between them. Before making a completion declaration, open a sample of approved entries and confirm that their evidence supports both the hours claimed and the work the person is authorised to perform.