A clawback is the lender's insurance against paying for a loan that does not stay. When a client discharges a loan inside the clawback window the lender deducts a percentage of the upfront commission from the broker's next commission run. The most common Australian schedule recovers 100% inside the first 12 months and 50% between months 13 and 24, though several major banks have shortened the second step to 18 months and a handful of non-banks have removed clawback on selected products.
Clawbacks are the largest single shock to a broker's cash flow. A single $700,000 refinance at month 8 can remove more than $4,000 from a monthly statement. The reforms introduced after the royal commission stopped brokers from recovering that cost from the borrower, so the loss now sits entirely with the broker.
The defence is visibility. Every loan settled in the last two years has a date on which its exposure clears, and most clawbacks come with warning signs: a fixed rate about to expire, a rate that has drifted above the lender's new-customer pricing, a client who has asked about their payout figure. Tracking those loans as a group, with days remaining, turns clawback from a surprise into a diary entry.