A 'fee for advice' model in mortgage broking remains on the wish list of the reformers at consumer group CHOICE, with the government's and ASIC's review of commissions in the sector still up for debate."At minimum, commission payments [by lenders] must be restructured so that payments [to mortgage brokers] are not linked to the amount a customer borrows," CHOICE said in a submission to Treasury last night. Consumer Action, Financial Counselling Australia and Financial Rights Legal Centre added their name to the recommendations.Undoing settled business models in the mortgage supply chain remains well and truly in CHOICE's sights.?"To best serve consumer interests, upfront commissions should be removed and replaced with fixed fees for advice, either lump sum payments or rates based on hours of work required to arrange a loan," it said.Under CHOICE's vision, "trail commissions should be removed as they offer no benefit to consumers" while "bonus commissions, bonus payments and soft dollar payments are removed within the year."The Australian Securities and Investments Commission concluded earlier this year, in a review requested by the federal government in late 2015 that the standard commission model of upfront and trail commissions "creates conflicts of interest."ASIC proposed at the time that "lenders do not structure their incentives in a way that encourages the creation of larger loans that initially have large offset balances."ASIC's report found that lenders paid around A$1.4 billion in upfront commissions on $175 billion of home loans in 2015, compared with $729 million on $98 billion of home loans in 2012.Lenders also paid $984 million in trail commissions on an average outstanding balance of $545 billion of home loans in 2015, compared with $733 million on an average outstanding balance of $380 billion of home loans in 2012.CHOICE called for "an industry-wide enforceable code that is registered with ASIC" and questioned ASIC's reliance on industry self-regulation, with the Australian Bankers Association being directed by ASIC to deliver or negotiate solutions to remuneration issues with mortgage brokers."While the ABA represents the largest home loan lenders in Australia, itsmembership does not cover all lenders," CHOICE said. "In addition to this, not all ADIs, brokers or aggregators are ABA members. While the review left many proposals to be dealt with by the ABA's Retail Banking Remuneration Review, the recommendations from that report only apply to ABA members and focus on the actions banks should take as opposed to aggregators and brokers."