The Firm Betting Everything on a Niche Most Lenders Abandoned

When Australia’s Big Four banks pulled out of self-managed super fund lending between 2015 and 2018, the professional advisory community drew a reasonable conclusion: SMSF property loans were finished. The exits came amid the Banking Royal Commission, ASIC scrutiny, and the Financial System Inquiry, all of which raised questions about the suitability of leveraged super investments. Accountants and financial planners across the country started telling clients the product was dead.

The product wasn’t dead. But the advice stuck.

“I have a friend who’s an accountant,” says Arthur Shin, Co-Founder of Excel Funding Group. “I asked her if any of her clients needed SMSF lending. She said, ‘Are people still borrowing in their SMSF?’ She had no idea. Her firm had been telling clients it wasn’t available anymore. They were turning people away.”

That gap between perception and reality is the entire reason Excel Funding Group exists.

A Business Built On One Word: No

Excel Funding Group launched in December 2024 with a proposition that most people in the mortgage industry considered commercially irrational. The company would only do SMSF loans. No standard home loans. No investment refinances. No construction finance. Nothing except self-managed super fund property lending.

“We can do standard finance,” Arthur Shin says. “Our platform allows it. We have competitive rates for it. But I don’t want to. This is our niche, and if we’re going to be the best at something, we need to be focused.”

That focus extends to turning away paying clients. When borrowers come back asking the firm to handle their personal mortgage, the answer is no. It is an unusual position for a company in its second year of operation. Most startups are searching for revenue wherever they can find it. This one is deliberately refusing it.

The Numbers Behind The Niche

According to the company, Excel Funding Group settled $2.7 million in SMSF loans in its first quarter of operation. By Q1 2026, that figure had grown to $9.2 million — more than three times the volume in roughly twelve months. Multiple borrowers have returned to purchase a second SMSF property within six months of their first settlement.

Excel Funding Group operates as a mortgage manager, not a broker. Through a white-label arrangement with a major Australian non-bank funder, the firm has direct control over pricing, product terms and the client relationship for the life of the loan. A broker originates a deal and hands it off. The team at Excel Funding Group manages the mortgage from the first phone call through to settlement and beyond.

The team is lean by design. Arthur Shin brings a background in treasury, securitisation, and property investment. Patrick, the company’s General Manager, has been working in SMSF property investment since 2011, with a background in financial planning and a client-facing role spanning both direct retail borrowers and a growing broker channel. Henry, Head of Credit and based in Melbourne, handles credit assessment from application to settlement, with deep non-bank lending expertise that the firm says allows it to catch issues that generalist brokers frequently miss.

The Problem That Keeps Sending Clients Their Way

The market is substantial. According to a 2025 industry analysis from Fundd, there are over 625,000 SMSFs in Australia involving roughly 1.1 million members, and approximately 10 percent have taken out loans via limited recourse borrowing arrangements to invest in property. ATO data published by Bluestone Home Loans shows that SMSFs collectively manage over $1 trillion in assets, with $161 billion held in property. In January 2026, AMP Bank relaunched SuperEdge, its residential SMSF lending product, after an eight-year absence — a signal that institutional confidence is returning.

But much of that demand is still being served by generalist brokers who, according to Excel Funding Group’s credit team, routinely get the basics wrong. Patrick describes a pattern the firm encounters weekly. “Brokers regularly quote clients the wrong LVR, the wrong rate, or the wrong property classification,” he says. “They’ll tell someone they can borrow 80 percent on a commercial property at a residential rate. Our team identifies that immediately.”

A client named Mandy came to Excel Funding Group after her broker had quoted her 80 percent LVR on what was described as a standard residential apartment. Henry’s team identified it as a serviced apartment in a managed complex — technically a commercial asset, subject to a lower borrowing limit and a higher interest rate. The broker hadn’t flagged the distinction. The firm restructured the deal, settled the loan, and Mandy returned months later to purchase a second property.

“More often than not,” Arthur Shin says, “when someone tells us another broker quoted them a specific rate or LVR on an SMSF loan, the numbers are wrong. Not close. Wrong.”

Who Actually Borrows Inside Their Super?

The typical Excel Funding Group client is in their 40s, has been accumulating super for 15 to 20 years, and is looking to diversify retirement savings away from equities. To qualify, borrowers generally need a combined super balance of at least $250,000 across fund members and a regular income generating ongoing contributions.

The Competitor Nobody Expected

The founders are clear-eyed about the firm’s biggest obstacle, and it isn’t another lender.

“People come to us who have been told — by professionals — that this product doesn’t exist,” Henry says. “Our biggest competitor isn’t another lender. It’s misinformation.”

AMP Bank’s return to the market in January 2026 may begin to correct that perception. For Excel Funding Group — a firm that bet its entire model on a niche most of the industry wrote off — the question was never whether the demand existed. It was whether anyone would bother to look.

“I was very down in December 2024,” Arthur Shin says. “I had some of the most competitive rates on the market, strong serviceability, and nobody cared. Everyone overlooked this product. And I couldn’t believe how hard it was to get anyone to listen.” Fifteen months later, the settlements are growing, the clients are coming back for second properties, and a major bank has re-entered the market Excel Funding Group refused to leave.