Two. Heartland Bank and SBS Bank. If you have rung your own bank and been told they do not do them, you were told correctly, and this page explains why.
The Two Active Lenders: Heartland And SBS
Heartland Bank is the dominant provider by a wide margin. It bought the Sentinel reverse mortgage business in 2014, which had been lending since 2004, and has grown the book to over $1.4 billion across 27,800-plus customers. It lends nationally, offers lump sum, monthly advance and Flexi Reserve options, a Secondary Property Loan for rentals and holiday homes, and a separate Village Access Loan for retirement village entry. Its variable rate is 8.25 percent as at October 2026.
SBS Bank, the Invercargill-based building society turned bank, offers SBS Unwind, launched in 2020 to replace its earlier Advance product. It lends a lower percentage at each age than Heartland but with a flexible draw-up-and-down structure, and its rate is 7.99 percent. It is the only alternative, and for some clients the better fit.
The full comparison is in Heartland vs SBS.
Why The Big Four Banks Do Not Offer Them
ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac, and Kiwibank, do not offer reverse mortgages in New Zealand, and have not for many years.
The reasons are commercial rather than regulatory. A reverse mortgage ties up the bank’s capital for an unknown period with no cash flow coming back, and the Reserve Bank’s capital rules treat that exposure conservatively. The no negative equity guarantee adds a tail risk the big banks have little appetite for. And the product requires specialist staff, specialist processes and a tolerance for dealing with older customers and their families that mainstream retail banking is not set up for. BNZ said publicly more than a decade ago that it was looking at reverse mortgage-type products; nothing came of it.
The result is a two-lender market, which is unusual for a product this widely used in Australia and the UK.
Lenders That Left The Market And What Happened To Their Customers
Sentinel, the original NZ specialist, was bought by Heartland in 2014; its customers became Heartland customers and some still pay under the capped margins of their original contracts. ASB, Westpac and others offered or trialled products in the 2000s and withdrew around the global financial crisis; those loans have long since been repaid or refinanced. Dorchester and a handful of finance companies had small books that did not survive the same period.
If you hold an older loan from any of these, the servicing has been taken over by Heartland or the loan has been discharged. Check your most recent statement.
Non-Bank And Family Alternatives
Outside the two banks, the options are not reverse mortgages but they solve similar problems.
Lifetime Home, from Lifetime Retirement Income, releases equity without debt by transferring a share of the home’s ownership over time in exchange for regular payments. It is a different structure with different risks and is worth reading about if debt-free equity release appeals; the alternatives article covers it.
Family arrangements, where a child lends against the home, are common and can be documented with a solicitor to protect everyone.
Work and Income’s Residential Care Loan is a government loan secured against the home for people in long-term care who do not qualify for the subsidy. It is not a reverse mortgage and it is not available for living at home.
What A Small Market Means For Your Negotiating Position
Not much. Neither lender negotiates rate or fees on an individual basis; the published terms apply to everyone. There is no bidding war to run.
What a two-lender market does mean is that the differences between the two are worth understanding properly, because they are the only choice you get. Borrowing limits at your age, property criteria, drawdown structure and equity protection vary, and one lender may decline a property the other accepts.
Why Going Through An Adviser Still Matters With Two Lenders
Each lender will explain its own product clearly and well. Neither will tell you whether the other suits you better, whether you should borrow less, or whether you should borrow at all. Heartland’s own figures show that only a small share of its NZ reverse mortgage business comes through advisers, which suggests most people go direct and never see the comparison.
That comparison, applied to your situation and put in writing, is what I do. I am paid a referral fee by the lender on settlement, which I disclose before we begin, and the first conversation costs you nothing. The advice page explains the process.
