Starts at 60, Australia’s leading online community for over-55s, has announced the establishment of Money At 60 – a dedicated specialist reverse mortgage brokerage designed to help older Australians access the equity in their homes to fund a more comfortable, dignified and financially secure retirement.
The new business is currently completing its regulatory authorisation process and will commence client services upon receipt of its Credit Representative Authorisation under an Australian Credit Licence. Money At 60 will initially specialise in reverse mortgage broking, giving the Starts at 60 community access to impartial, expert guidance in a market that has historically been underserved by independent advice.
The Starts at 60 Group has appointed Chris Moutzikis as Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Money At 60, with Moutzikis also serving as Principal Retirement Funding Specialist as the business grows and builds its advisory team. Money At 60 will operate as a dedicated financial services subsidiary of the Starts at 60 Group, giving the community’s nearly one million active users access to a trusted, expert resource for one of the most consequential financial decisions of their retirement years.
Moutzikis brings more than three decades of experience across banking, wealth management and retirement funding, including deep specialist expertise in the reverse mortgage sector developed during a pivotal tenure with one of Australia’s leading equity release lenders. He is widely regarded as one of the most experienced practitioners in the Australian reverse mortgage market.
Australia is in the midst of a retirement funding challenge that is only accelerating. More than 6.9 million Australians are now aged 55 and over — representing approximately 27 per cent of the total population — and a significant proportion are entering or living through retirement in a position that might best be described as asset-rich but cash-poor.
They own homes that have appreciated dramatically over decades of sustained property price growth. Yet for many, superannuation balances are insufficient to fund 25 to 30 years without employment income. Rising healthcare and aged care costs, insurance premiums and the pressures of everyday living are placing unprecedented strain on fixed retirement incomes. The family home — often the largest single asset a retiree owns — sits untouched while financial stress grows.
The Australian Government recognised this dynamic and responded with the Home Equity Access Scheme (HEAS), a government-backed loan that allows retirees of Age Pension age to draw against the equity in their home at a government interest rate of 3.95 per cent per annum. Participation in the scheme grew by 329 per cent between 2020 and mid-2024, reaching approximately 13,400 participants as at June 2024 — a signal that older Australians are actively looking for ways to access their home equity, and that awareness of equity release as a retirement funding tool is growing rapidly.
In the private reverse mortgage market, the picture is equally compelling. New reverse mortgage loan volumes across the sector trebled over the five years to 2025. Leading industry figures project that annual new originations will more than double again by 2030, reaching between $1.5 billion and $2 billion per year. Heartland Bank, the market’s largest lender, reported its Australian reverse mortgage portfolio reaching $1.98 billion as at June 2025 — an 18.5 per cent increase year on year, while holding approximately 40 per cent of the market.
Yet despite this growth, demand remains significantly underpenetrated relative to the addressable population. The opportunity is large — but so is the gap in quality, independent guidance.
The barrier is not the product. It is trust.
For all the demographic and market momentum behind reverse mortgages, many older Australians remain hesitant — and that hesitancy is understandable. It is rooted in history.
Products sold in Australia’s early equity release market during the 1980s and 1990s lacked the consumer protections that exist today. Stories of borrowers owing more than the value of their home, or finding themselves in financial difficulty, left a lasting impression on a generation of retirees and their families.
Those products no longer exist in Australia, but the memory of them does.
Today’s reverse mortgages are governed by strict consumer protections under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act. Since September 2012, all new reverse mortgages in Australia have been required to carry a No Negative Equity Guarantee, which means borrowers can never owe more than the value of their home at the time of repayment. Independent legal advice is required before settlement. Lenders must demonstrate that any loan is not unsuitable for the borrower’s needs and circumstances.
The regulatory framework is robust. The remaining barrier is knowledge, confidence and access to genuinely independent advice. That is precisely the gap Money At 60 has been created to fill.
“This is exactly the gap Money At 60 has been created to fill. Our community trusts Starts at 60 because we have always put their interests first. Money At 60 extends that trust into one of the most consequential financial decisions an older Australian can make — and we do it with genuine expertise, complete transparency, and a broker model that gives people access to multiple lenders rather than locking them into a single provider,”Chris Moutzikis, Co-Founder and Chief Executive, Money At 60 said
A critical distinction about Money At 60 is what it is not. It is not a lender. It does not manufacture loan products, and it does not earn more by directing customers to one institution over another.
Money At 60 is a specialist reverse mortgage broker – operating as an authorised credit representative under an Australian Credit Licence — that works with a panel of Australia’s leading reverse mortgage lenders to source the most suitable product for each customer’s individual circumstances, goals and family situation.
This broker model is fundamental to how Money At 60 serves its clients. Because Money At 60 is not aligned to any single lender, its recommendations are driven entirely by the customer’s needs. That independence is reinforced by a statutory obligation: the Best Interests Duty, which applies to all mortgage brokers in Australia and requires that every recommendation demonstrably serves the customer’s interests — not the interests of a lender or product manufacturer.
In practical terms, this means a Money At 60 client receives a structured, educational process that helps them understand their options before any product discussion takes place. They are encouraged to involve family members. They are never pressured. And the recommendation they receive at the end of that process is one that has been tested against their specific circumstances, not against a lender’s sales targets.
Education before product
One of the defining principles of the Money At 60 model is that education comes before any product discussion. Many older Australians approach the question of home equity with significant anxiety — shaped by past misconceptions, family concern, or simply a lack of reliable information.
Money At 60 addresses this through a structured, three-stage client journey. The first conversation is focused entirely on understanding the client’s situation, concerns and goals. No product is discussed. No pressure is applied. The goal is simply to ensure that by the end of the process, the client has the information, the confidence and the family support they need to make a genuinely informed decision — whatever that decision turns out to be.
If a reverse mortgage is not the right solution for a client’s circumstances, Money At 60 will say so. That commitment to honest, unconflicted guidance is what distinguishes a consumer advocate from a product distributor.
Built on a foundation of trust
Money At 60 does not launch into a vacuum. It launches as part of the Starts at 60 ecosystem — a community that has spent more than a decade building trust with over-60s across Australia through journalism, lifestyle content, travel, and advocacy.
That trust is Money At 60’s greatest asset. Older Australians who are considering whether to access their home equity are not looking for a transaction. They are looking for someone they can trust with one of the biggest financial decisions of their lives. The Starts at 60 brand, and the editorial integrity that has built it, provides the foundation upon which Money At 60 will operate.
The business has been established with the direct involvement and personal investment of the Starts at 60 Group’s major shareholders, reflecting their conviction that Money At 60 represents both a genuine service to the community and a significant long-term commercial opportunity for the group.
What to expect from Money At 60
Upon receiving its Credit Representative Authorisation, Money At 60 will offer the following services to older Australians and their families:
• Independent reverse mortgage broking — access to a panel of Australia’s leading lenders with no allegiance to any single provider.
• Retirement funding education — clear, plain-English explanations of how reverse mortgages work, what protections are in place, and what questions to ask.
• Family-inclusive conversations — a process designed to involve adult children and family members at every stage, reflecting the reality that these decisions are rarely made in isolation.
• Guidance on government options — including the Home Equity Access Scheme, which may be suitable for eligible retirees seeking smaller, lower-cost access to home equity.
• No-pressure, no-obligation consultations — because the right decision made with confidence is always better than a fast decision made under pressure.