Sixty and Shut Out: When Financial Regulation Becomes Financial Exclusion

Age-based mortgage lending restrictions represent a critical yet understudied dimension of financial exclusion in aging societies. This study combines empirical comparative policy analysis with normative evaluation, documenting international regulatory variation while advancing policy reform arguments grounded in discrimination theory and institutional economics frameworks. This study examines how central bank policy and governmental inaction can perpetuate systematic discrimination against older borrowers through regulatory vacuum rather than deliberate design. Employing qualitative comparative policy analysis across ten jurisdictions, the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland, Singapore, France, Spain, Turkey, and Sri Lanka, we construct a five-tier regulatory ranking that reveals stark divergence unaccountable by economic development or demographic differences alone. Sri Lanka’s rigid 60-year mortgage age cutoff, the most restrictive approach identified globally, categorically excludes creditworthy older borrowers. Drawing on discrimination theories in the critical paradigm, we further establish that Sri Lanka’s approach constitutes statistical discrimination.