I’m Freyja Chen

I spent more than ten years in retail banking before I started broking. That’s a long time watching how a bank actually works from the inside: what it asks for, in what order, and the small things that quietly hold a file up for weeks. Most of what I do now is making sure none of those things are left for somebody else to find.

It taught me that an application isn’t really a form, it’s an argument. Nobody at the other end is hostile. They have a policy manual, a queue, and no time to go looking for a number you didn’t make obvious. Most files that stall are the ones that left somebody else to do that work.

So I write my reasoning down as I go, while the decision is still open. Which lenders I looked at, the income figure and the calculation behind it, what I’m paid and by whom. You get the same record I keep, and you can hand any of it to your accountant and let them pick holes in it.

Most of the people I work with are running a business or working for themselves. Their income is real. It just doesn’t fit the form the bank hands you. Nearly all of them were sent to me by a past client or their accountant, which means I’m usually looking after somebody else’s reputation as well as my own.

I’m based in Sydney and I have clients in every state. Most of the work happens over video and a document portal these days, which suits a file that needs six documents from four people better than a meeting does.