Reverse Mortgages have been available in Australia since the early 1990’s. The Advance Bank was the first lender to offer a true Reverse Mortgage Loan (as opposed to a line of credit), but the product was only mildly popular due to limited demographic demand of the times.

When St George Bank took over Advance bank in 1998 it inherited their Reverse Mortgage loan product and this has since developed into the Senior’s Access Home Loan they continue to offer today. Around 2001 the Commonwealth Bank entered the Reverse Mortgage market with the release of what is now known as ‘Equity Unlock For Seniors’.

From 2002 there was a period of steep growth in the Australian Reverse Mortgage market. In 2004 the early product providers established ‘The Senior Australians Equity Release Association of Lenders’ (SEQUAL), as an industry body to represent their interests. SEQUAL established a code of conduct and an infrastructure of self-regulation which was very effective in protecting sometimes vulnerable pensioners and elderly borrowers.

Over the next few years a stream of new lenders emerged in anticipation of the retirement funding shortfall projected for the coming generation of retiring baby boomers.