You are not starting over. You are changing the platform you build on. Here is the order to do it in, and what is around you at each step.
Written by A.I.M.I. Collective Mortgage Group, Brokerage editorial team
Published September 2026 · Last reviewed 11 September 2026
Bankers do not need Mortgage 101. They need the parts that are different: many lenders instead of one, packaging a file for an underwriter who does not know you, broker compliance, commission, and a pipeline that starts with you rather than a branch. The plan below is the order that works. It is a framework, not a programme, and how fast you move through it depends on your network and your notice period.
Take the course while employed. BC, Alberta and Ontario each run their own; the comparison has cost and timing. In Alberta and Ontario a brokerage sponsors your application, so step two happens before the licence arrives.
Interview them the way they interview you. Who takes the 9pm call on a hard file, what lender status your submissions carry, what happens to compliance and processing, and net income after every fee line. Read the questions to ask.
Non solicit, non compete, confidentiality, notice. Know what you may say and to whom, before day one. Read what you can and cannot do.
Portal, lender portals, submission workflow, broker compliance forms, the Deal Desk. Skip nothing here even though you know lending; the workflow is different. Weekly lender training covers appetite across the panel, which you have never had to know.
Twenty conversations a week with the people you are allowed to contact. Announce the move. Two referral partners who will actually send a file. Read the playbook and the first 90 days plan.
Your first files go in with experienced brokers reviewing, or through the Deal Desk, so the lender choice and the packaging are right. The question is no longer will the bank approve it; it is which of several lenders will, and the Deal Desk answers that with you.
Answer four quick questions and we will email you the three guides that fit where you are today.
Every funded client is a renewal, a refinance and a referral. Run the database engine from file one, because unlike the bank's clients, these are yours.
Business owners, investors, newcomers, self employed, commercial. Whatever you specialised in at the bank is your specialty here from day one, with the lenders to match.
Head office carries compliance, payroll and processing, so the next hire is for origination. Read $10 million to $50 million.
Experienced brokers and the Deal Desk for the first files. Weekly lender training and a team chat that answers a scenario the same evening. Compliance, payroll and processing at head office. Top tier lender status from your first submission. The broker portal at no cost and BrokerDam at a member rate. None of it makes the twenty conversations a week for you.
The conversation is confidential and nothing is said to your employer. Clients you originate as a broker are yours, including the renewal and the referral. The client list you built at the bank stays at the bank, and we will not ask you for it. What we carry is the licensing paperwork, the lender registrations and the first hard files while you learn where they go.
Leaving a bank mobile mortgage specialist role to become a broker in BC, Alberta or Ontario: licensing, the income model, lender choice and your contract.
Salary, bonus, pension and benefits against commission, split, book value and expenses: the honest economics of moving from the bank to a brokerage.
Non solicit clauses, privacy law and the client list that cannot leave with you: what a banker turned broker can and cannot do with existing relationships.
Commercial bankers are closer to a commercial brokerage book than any new broker: the clients, the analysis and the language are there. What changes.
A confidential conversation: your timeline, your notice period, your network and what the first ninety days look like here. Nothing is said to your employer.