Our Story
Build & Protect Financial Services began in 2010 with a simple mission: to help Australian professionals build and protect a lifestyle they genuinely wanted, not just one they felt they had to settle for.
In those early years, the financial landscape allowed for broad guidance. But as the industry shifted – through the Banking Royal Commission and move to fee-for-service – a chasm in the access to advice opened. Today, with advice fees often approaching five figures, many emerging professionals are priced out of the very strategic help for their life’s most significant financial decisions.
At the same time, property prices and cost-of-living pressures have exacerbated the stakes, making it more critical than ever to get the fundamentals right early.
- Cash-flow and household budgeting.
- Understanding deductible vs non-deductible debt.
- Using equity strategically, and responsibly.
- Making informed property and lending decisions.
This foundational knowledge is what Build & Protect still delivers to its clients every day. It is a skillset that is increasingly absent from education systems, distorted by unqualified “fin-fluencers,” and oversimplified by brokers trading integrity for volume.
As the industry evolved, so did founder Mike Bell’s perspective. During a two-decade career spanning lending and financial planning, Mike led the divisions and teams that defined how banks quantified risk. From the executive suite, the view was overtly clinical – the system was designed for volume, not value. A machine built for the average borrower.
This rigid, one-sided approach was fundamentally incompatible with high-performing professionals. With complex financial lives and significant wealth objectives, sophisticated borrowers were making compromised property decisions because they were receiving transactional product help, rather than strategic advice designed for their unique situation.
Leaving the institutional world to work for the client, not the credit committee, Mike refocused B&PFS to return sovereignty to the borrower. Today, we apply decades of insider knowledge, sound fundamentals and real-world property investment experience to help clients build, manage, and protect their wealth.
Whether you are an emerging professional or a seasoned investor, our recommendation remains consistent: Engage qualified professionals with a track record of doing exactly what they advise.
Sound financial foundations have never mattered more.
Our Vision
To be the definitive mortgage broker for strategic property finance.
To empower ambitious Australians to build wealth, secure their future, and achieve total financial confidence through property.
Our Mission
To provide the high-performance mortgage advice that enables you to master your finances.
We remove the friction from lending and deliver the strategic debt structures you need to build the life you want.
Our Values
Unwavering Integrity
We operate with a Private Banking level of discretion and honesty. Our mandate is the client’s best interest.
Excellence in Execution
We manage the complexities of high-income lending with high-quality service and zero margin for error.
Committed to Outcome
We are in the business of delivering meaningful, resilient financial results, not settling loans. The outcome is to build and protect wealth.
Strategic Discipline
We reject rate-chasing. Every recommendation is a calculated, informed move, designed to optimise debt structure and prioritise long-term wealth.
Why our clients choose Build & Protect
We operate as strategic advisors rather than product distributors. We apply an institutional lens to personal wealth. While the industry is flooded with transactional brokers, our advantage is built on three distinctive pillars:
Institutional Insight
Having managed the divisions that dictate how banks quantify and price risk, we look at client files through the eyes of the credit committee. We know exactly how to structure a complex application to bypass algorithmic friction and secure approvals that standard brokers cannot.
Active Practitioners
We are not theorists. The lending strategies we build for clients are the exact same strategies we use to build and protect our own wealth. When we advise on structuring deductible debt, releasing equity, or scaling a portfolio, it is backed by the hard-earned reality of actually doing it in today’s market.
Pod-Based Execution
While all clients deal directly with a single senior adviser, an entire team sits behind their application.
Together with a senior broker, our client’s wealth is managed by a synchronized team: a dedicated Finance Strategist architecting the debt structure, an Associate Strategist providing technical advisory support, and a Business Support Officer (BSO) guaranteeing data, forms and lodgements are complete and delivered on time. This multi-tiered execution delivers institutional-speed results and absolute structural clarity.
Real results. Real client experiences.
We’re proud of the feedback we receive from clients who value clear advice, responsive support, and tailored loan solutions.
ivy nguyen
I had a great experience with Michael. He was kind, helpful and professional. Very efficient and timely. I would highly recommend working with him.
Matt Edouard-Betsy
Our experience with Mike as our broker was exceptional. He guided us with the right options for our new investment and had that extra touch of following up with us almost every day, keeping us relaxed and reassured, to ensure a smooth transition into creating our future property portfolio. His market insight is impressive and his honesty is what made us choose his services.
I highly recommend Mike at Build & Protect Financial Services.Steph Buxton
Mike was incredibly hands on and helpful throughout the process of our mortgage research. We were not the most straight forward case and Mike worked with us for nearly 18 months to secure our loan and forever home. A great experience. We would recommend him to anyone.
Our Founder
Mike Bell
Director & Finance Strategist
Mike is the Founder and Director of Build & Protect Financial Services and is a highly qualified mortgage adviser with broad financial planning and wealth creation experience. Mike’s expertise covers all aspects of lending.
Mike truly believes that all Australians should have access to quality financial advice to help them own their own homes and retire comfortably.
Mike believes in the concepts of ikigai (Japanese concept of reason for living) and kaizen (Japanese concept that promotes continuous improvement) and integrates these into Build & Protect Financial Services.
When he’s not celebrating milestones with his clients, he’s sweating it out in the dojo or weight room.
Qualifications
- Master of Business Administration (Executive) from the University of New South Wales
- Bachelor of Business from the University of Technology Sydney
- Advanced Diploma of Financial Services (Financial Planning), Kaplan
- Diploma of Finance and Mortgage Broking Management, Kaplan
- Certificate of Margin Lending and Geared Investments, Kaplan
