Mortgage brokers have no shortage of headaches when it comes to documents. Files often entail a thick stack of documents, including:

• Down payment trails spanning multiple accounts
• Pay stubs that look like they were faxed in 1998
• Large unexplained deposits
• Partial, expired or missing documents or pages
• Missing account numbers, dates, job titles, names or addresses
• Incorrect years (e.g., for NOAs)
• Questionable screenshots
• Redactions
• Missing signatures

Worse yet, documents come in a myriad of formats and lenders like them all in one.

Purelend.ai promises to make that mess go away—for a price. At $16 per file, brokers are asking: Is it worth it?

U.S. core PCE inflation—the Fed’s favourite inflation tracker—rose 0.23% in August, keeping the annual pace at 2.9%. The three-month run rate is also parked at 2.9%, high above the Fed’s 2% goal, which now looks about as realistic as my plan to jog before breakfast.

Canadian growth rolled a few feet forward in July before sputtering to a halt in August. Bay Street remains divided over what the Bank of Canada should do at October's rate meeting: call a tow truck with another 25 bps jump-start, or wait and see what high octane spending is in the November 4 budget.

Yields came back to life on Thursday as stronger-than-expected U.S. data and more central bank chatter raised chances that the Fed could skip a cut in October.

Wednesday barely left its fingerprints on Canadian yields. It was another day of negligible bond movement as markets:
(A) await Friday's GDP and Core PCE, and
(B) continue chewing on the Fed’s half-hearted indications of rate cuts.

He’s the mortgage broker who makes competitors sweat, X trolls whimper, and mortgage shoppers applaud. Known affectionately as the “angry mortgage broker,” though really more of a passionately blunt Canadian treasure, he’s built a following by telling it exactly like it is—no sugar-coating, no velvet gloves, just hard truths served piping hot. Today's episode of Stress Test This features the one man who can make debt ratios go viral: Ron Butler.

There wasn't much data to chew on Tuesday, but two wet-blanket speeches left yields slightly lower.

The BoC's Macklem said Canadian trade is under attack and requires counter-measures (i.e., diversifying trade partners sooner rather than later).

Meanwhile, Fed Chair Powell noted that inflation’s staying power calls for a cautious rate policy.

If you want to bet on the Canadian mortgage brokers industry, you'll soon have a new way to do it.

RFA Capital Holdings recently announced a merger with Artis REIT that will create a new publicly traded company called RFA Financial.

The retooled firm’s revenue model will revolve around brokers and be centred on RFA Bank, which is a top-10 lender in the broker market.

"We're focused solely on the broker channel and not deviating from that," RFA's CEO Ben Rodney told MLN in an exclusive interview.

Rodney was kind enough to walk us through why this partnership is logical and why Canada’s mortgage world may soon take notice.