How the policy check works
Most brokers rely on memory and a phone call to a lender contact when a tricky scenario lands on their desk. I spent years in IT before broking, so I built software instead. This page explains exactly what my AI-assisted policy check is, what it does with your scenario, and - just as importantly - what it does not do.
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John Carson-Zangor - Residential Mortgage Broker, Nectar Mortgages. Based in Bethania, Logan, serving Brisbane, Ipswich, the Gold Coast and Australia-wide by phone and video. Credit representative 537545 of QED Credit Services Pty Ltd, Australian Credit Licence 387856.
Last reviewed: July 2026
1. The library
The foundation is a policy library I built and maintain myself: structured notes on the written policies of more than 60 lenders. Lender policy means the written rules a lender uses to decide who it will lend to - how it reads self-employed income, how it treats a past default, what deposit it expects for a given property type. Each note in the library records where the information came from, the date it was sourced, and a confidence rating - how sure I am that the note still matches the lender's current position. Lenders change their credit guides constantly, so the library is refreshed as those guides change. Notes that are getting old are flagged as stale rather than trusted blindly.
2. What happens when you enquire
When you send through your scenario, it gets checked against the library first - before anyone talks about lenders. The check looks at the things lenders actually decide on: your income type (PAYG, self-employed, mixed), your deposit, your credit history, the property itself and the purpose of the loan. The output is not a guess and not a single "answer". It is a shortlist of lender lanes worth investigating - the pathways whose written policy suggests your scenario may fit, and the ones whose policy suggests it will not. From there I do the human work: verifying the shortlist, weighing the trade-offs and talking it through with you.
3. What the software does NOT do
This part matters, so I will be blunt about it. The software does not approve loans - only a lender can do that, after its own full assessment. It does not replace lender assessment, and it does not replace my judgment as a broker. It is a research tool, not a decision-maker. Every answer it produces is verified against current lender policy, and confirmed with the lender itself, before anything is lodged. If the library and the lender disagree, the lender wins and the library gets corrected. No application goes in on the strength of a software output alone.
4. Why this matters to you
Three reasons. First, fewer wasted applications - your scenario is matched against written policy before it goes anywhere near a lender, so applications that were never going to fit do not get lodged and do not leave marks on your credit file. Second, honest answers - if the check says the timing is wrong, I will tell you "not yet" and what needs to change, rather than pushing an application that cannot be considered. Third, a decline elsewhere becomes data rather than a verdict. If another broker or lender has said no, the policy check can often show why that particular lane did not fit - and whether a different lender's written rules read your situation differently.
Want your scenario checked against the library?
Tell John what you are trying to do. Your position gets checked against written lender policy before any lender is approached.
General information only, not credit advice. Your circumstances, lender criteria and responsible lending requirements apply. John Carson-Zangor is a credit representative (537545) of QED Credit Services Pty Ltd, Australian Credit Licence 387856.