You built the relationships. The bank owns the records. The line between those two is where bankers get into trouble, and where the careful ones build a book without a letter from a lawyer.
Written by A.I.M.I. Collective Mortgage Group, Brokerage editorial team
Published September 2026 · Last reviewed 11 September 2026
The most valuable thing a banker brings to brokering is a decade of relationships: clients, realtors, accountants, lawyers, business owners. The most dangerous thing they can bring is the bank's data. This guide separates the two. It is general information, not legal advice; your employment agreement and a lawyer decide your specifics.
Names, contact details, balances, maturity dates, notes. Copying, exporting, photographing or emailing yourself any of it is a breach of your employment agreement and of privacy law. It is also the single most common way a banker's move ends in a legal letter.
Rate sheets, pricing exceptions, internal policies, pipeline reports. Assume all of it is confidential whether or not it is marked.
Most bank agreements restrict soliciting the bank's clients, and sometimes its employees, for a period after you leave, commonly six to twenty four months. Read the clause. It defines what solicit means and for how long.
The realtor who sends you buyers because you close, the accountant who trusts you with their incorporated clients. Those relationships were built by you, and a public announcement that you have moved is not solicitation.
A client who finds your new details and calls is not solicited. You cannot go to them; they can come to you. Being findable, on LinkedIn, on Google and at your new brokerage, is the legitimate version.
Family, friends, former colleagues in other industries, your community. None of it belongs to the bank.
Answer four quick questions and we will email you the three guides that fit where you are today.
Read your employment agreement with a lawyer, specifically the non solicit, non compete, confidentiality and notice clauses. Know exactly what you may say, to whom, and from when. The cost of an hour with an employment lawyer is a rounding error against the cost of getting this wrong.
Announce the move publicly: LinkedIn, a personal email to friends and family, a note to professionals who know you personally. Add every new contact to your own CRM from day one with consent recorded, because CASL applies to your marketing now that you are the business; read the CASL guide. Run the referral partner playbook with the professionals you are allowed to contact. Most bankers who do this find that the first ninety days of a new book come from referral partners, not from former clients, and that the book is theirs cleanly.
This is general information for brokers considering a move, not legal, tax or financial advice. Your employment agreement, your province and your own numbers decide the specifics; read the agreement with a lawyer before you act on any of this.
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.
Nine steps from the bank to a brokered book: licence, brokerage, orientation, plan, network, first file, book, specialty, scale, and the support at each.
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 about your timeline and what a book built from zero looks like in your first year. Nothing is said to your employer.