10-Apr-2026: Despite the on-again, off-again, on-again war in the middle east and the Strait of Hormuz issues this past week, the ASX 200 finished a very strong week (down just 13 points to 8961 for the day today - Friday) as we await further Iranian negotiations.
For the week, we were up over 4.4%, the best week since October 2022.
Banks were steady despite some issues with mortgages on the AFR front page: https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/mortgage-fraud-worries-balloon-to-3b-as-banks-remark-their-homework-20260408-p5zm9q [10-Apr-2026]
Opinion
Mortgage fraud worries balloon to $3b as banks remark their homework
The higher potential exposures indicate deep and ingrained issues within the home loan market, and the time for a concerted industry response is now.
Joyce Moullakis - Associate editor
The detailed mortgage fraud and loan irregularity reviews being conducted by banks across the sector have uncovered ballooning levels of potential exposure, and the estimates are nothing but conservative.
Across the major banks and Macquarie, loans identified as suspicious or fraudulent so far have swelled to about $3 billion, people with knowledge of the investigations told this columnist on the condition of anonymity.
As part of a data-sharing program between 10 lenders, Commonwealth Bank has informed other banks of loan referrers it suspects are linked to fraudulent or irregular mortgages. And the assessment by the sector of the potential problem isn’t yet over, as data and intel continue to be shared among banks and authorities including financial crimes regulator AUSTRAC. That suggests the figure is likely to be even higher.
The swelling potential exposures indicate deep and ingrained issues within the home loan market, and the time for a concerted industry response is now. The sophistication and scale of the issues being uncovered warrant a complete rethink of how loan documents are sourced and verified by banks and mortgage brokers.
One senior banker told this column that suspected fraudulent exposures had increased as more intel was shared, allowing more thorough reviews to occur on loan portfolios.
“When we have the intelligence it helps drive more of a targeted review,” he said, noting the industry and authorities were still trying to ascertain what proportion of loans were linked to criminal groups versus fraudulent applications or inadvertent misrepresentations.
Banks and mortgage brokers also need to come together to create a central repository to flag individuals that have been found to be doing the wrong thing. That would create another important protection to stop those flouting the system going between banks and the mortgage broking industry.
The latest data and intel sharing, according to three bank sources, has identified the involvement of bankers and mortgage brokers in the Chinese community, alongside money mules, and accountants. A mule transfers or moves illegally sourced money on behalf of someone else. There are also suspected connections to Middle Eastern crime gangs.
AUSTRAC declined to comment on the investigation, but chief executive Brendan Thomas said: “Our priority is understanding the scale and sophistication of mortgage fraud, including the possible use of false documents, synthetic identities and professional facilitators, which can allow criminal funds to be embedded in high-value assets like property.”
It seems this sort of activity is now rampant in our home loan market, and it’s something the sector, regulators and police need to address with renewed vigour. The loans are typically secured by homes and apartments meaning any losses at the banks will be limited, but the activity is a blight on our banking system and must be stamped out as much as possible.
Mortgage broking group Finsure has had people within its network implicated in potential loan fraud, with two banks telling this column the firm was represented among the suspicious mortgages.
Three lenders also raised concerns about the activities of full-service real estate group Property Investors Alliance and people believed to be connected to the firm, which has a heavy focus on Asian customers. A PIA spokesman said the company “has never been investigated by AUSTRAC, and no bank has found PIA to be involved in any fraudulent activity”.
Real estate agents, accountants and lawyers can receive upfront commissions from some of the major banks for referring mortgage customers, when a loan is taken out and drawn down. Mortgage brokers receive upfront as well as annual trailing commissions from lenders.
Real estate agents, lawyers and accountants are being brought into AUSTRAC’s remit in July, as part of new reforms to the anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing framework.
Mortgage brokers are not a designated service under the changes, but if AUSTRAC identifies suspected criminal activity within the industry, it can share intelligence with law enforcement agencies and other regulators.
Finsure chief executive Simon Bednar said the firm had identified some bad apples within its network of 4400 brokers. “The industry is always going to have its share of bad actors. Finsure acts as soon as there is any notification or any evidence of bad actors,” he said. “Banks do need to do more in communicating with aggregators on reference checking.”
Earlier this year, Finsure moved to raise entry standards for brokers joining its network.
While banks can share information through a portal about staff involved in misconduct, such intel is not shared directly with mortgage broking groups. That means bankers that may have had conduct issues aren’t flagged with the groups that house broking businesses and individual brokers.
It’s also a little unclear how the portal is administered by the banks.
Separately, two whistleblower reports lodged with CBA last year raised concerns about the actions of a former employee, who was terminated from the lender but later emerged as a mortgage broker. This is the sort of career shift that banks and mortgage brokers should be working together to stop.
The Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia, the industry body for brokers, does have an annual membership requirement, including answering a host of questions such as whether the individual has been subject of a criminal investigation or convicted of an offence. It also asks if the individual has ever been terminated for disciplinary reasons.
It is, however, relatively easy for an applicant to provide dishonest answers. There is a safeguard in that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission does administer a register of people who are banned from engaging in credit activities by any state or territory.
But banks and broking groups can go much further than that.
If someone has been proven to have engaged in purposefully falsifying loan documents, for example, and has evaded the regulator’s net, they should be flagged on register so that they cannot work within the industry again.
The granular reviews of home loan portfolios occurring across the nation’s biggest lenders come after the CBA self-reported itself to regulators and police over about $1 billion in potential mortgage fraud it uncovered.
Some of the activity was linked to a spike in doctored applications, the use of shell companies and moving funds out of jurisdictions with capital controls, such as China. CBA has referred two brokers and several accountants to the police as part of its internal investigation into the fraud.
The country’s largest lender has also commissioned research that found suspected fraudulent loans were taken out by customers that had also sought finance with other banks amounting to about another $1 billion.
Another banker, involved in the investigations but not authorised to speak publicly, said the source of some of the funds being used for suspect mortgage deposits or to fund repayments was still unknown.
“There is a lot of data matching that needs to occur,” they said.
A third banking executive said the industry needed to lift its game and to better stamp out fraudulent activity, while coordination between the corporate regulator, AUSTRAC and the Australian Taxation Office could also be improved. That included allowing ATO data to be made accessible via the open banking regime to allow lenders to assess income levels stated on an application more accurately.
The executive also suggested AUSTRAC could seek to facilitate direct access to ringfenced bank data to speed up inquiries.
--- ends ---
Source: https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/mortgage-fraud-worries-balloon-to-3b-as-banks-remark-their-homework-20260408-p5zm9q [10-Apr-2026]
Related:
Opinion: 
Opinion: 
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/09/business/shipping-vessels-oil-ceasefire-strait-of-hormuz [10-Apr-2026]
Ships still aren’t going through the Strait of Hormuz. Here’s what it will take to get things going again
By Vanessa Yurkevich, Chris Isidore, Matt Egan
Vessels off the coast of Musandam Governorate, overlooking the strait of Hormuz, in Musandam governance in Oman, on April 8, 2026. Reuters
New York — A fragile ceasefire that’s mostly quieted the skies over the Middle East isn’t giving shippers the nerve to brave the narrow waterway that holds the key to 20% of the world’s oil supply.
The Strait of Hormuz may be officially re-opening for business, but shipping company executives and analysts told CNN uncertainty surrounding the ceasefire is still making transit too risky right now. Explicit approval and safety assurances from Iran, clear guidance on how and when to transit and a long-term view of the strait’s future are all so far missing, shippers told CNN.
Hapag-Lloyd, the fifth-largest shipping company in the world, has six container ships trapped in the strait, but it’s keeping them put for now.
“Our top priority is the safety of our employees on land and on sea. Based on our current risk assessment we are refraining from transiting the strait,” spokesman Nils Haupt said.
Word of a two-week ceasefire sent oil plunging and stocks soaring on Wednesday, a reflection of the strait’s importance to global commerce. That rally has given way to a reality check: Despite repeated assurances from President Donald Trump that the strait is open, only a few ships have made the journey in recent days. Oil, after notching double-digit declines, is again flirting with $100 a barrel.
A woman fills up her vehicle's tank at a gas station in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood in the Manhattan borough of New York on March 31, 2026. Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images
Indeed, Lale Akoner, a global market analyst at financial services company eToro, told CNN it could take six months to get ship traffic back to where it was before the war began. More than 100 cargo-carrying vessels moved through the 21-mile-wide waterway daily before the conflict, according to shipping-data provider Lloyd’s List. That means the economic consequences of the war – higher energy costs and their varied knock-on effects – are likely to well outlast the fighting.
Here’s why: Shippers are hesitant to trust a ceasefire that’s already been shaky, especially without direction on which ships can go when. Just two oil or gas tankers have transited the Strait of Hormuz since the ceasefire was announced, according to Kpler, a data intelligence and analytics platform. Over 400 tankers, 34 LPG tankers and 19 LNG vessels remained in the region as of Wednesday, according to MarineTraffic data.
And ships don’t just need to get out – they also need to get in, so that they can load up stored-up oil that’s been trapped on land for weeks.
“Vessel operators believe it’s not worth taking the risk,” said Joe McMonigle, president of think tank Global Center for Energy Analysis and who lives in Saudi Arabia. “People are going to be extremely cautious about going back to normal.”
‘Temporary and conditional’
While other critical goods like fertilizer flow through the straight, oil is the number one priority.
“The ceasefire removes the worst-case scenario, but it’s temporary and conditional,” said eToro’s Akoner.
Behind the scenes shipping companies are trying to figure out how to get their ships out of the Persian Gulf safely.
Shipping executives say they have “no information” on how to transit the strait during the ceasefire and are not in contact with Iranian authorities, according to Sanne Manders, president of Flexport, a global shipping logistics company.
Shipping experts say Iran is still in charge of the strait – and those authorities haven’t laid out a plan for safe passage yet.
Source: US Energy Information Administration; Graphic: Amy O'Kruk, CNN
Martín Izaguirre Salgado, a seafarer who has been stuck on board his company’s oil tanker in the Persian Gulf since late February, said as of Thursday, they were still stuck.
Shippers want “explicit approval from the people that may do you harm,” said Ron Widdows, the former head of the World Shipping Council. “How that process works, who exactly is the body that’s got the authority to say, ‘Yeah, you can or not.,’”
Adding to the uncertainty, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed Thursday that shipping through the Strait of Hormuz slowed sharply and then stopped following what it said was an Israeli ceasefire violation in Lebanon.
Getting out – and getting back in
Tankers that have been stuck in the strait for weeks aren’t the only issue.
“You also must have a willingness of empty tankers to come back in through the strait, refill and then go back out,” an oil industry source told CNN. “That whole process takes several days.”
Hapag-Lloyd, for example, has no vessels waiting to get into the waterway. “That would not make sense at all,” spokesman Haupt said.
Instead, shipping companies are “basically waiting until others test” passage, said Flexport’s Manders.
Shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday. Marine Traffic
“Oil tankers and vessels of Chinese origin will likely test these waters first,” Manders said. (China is an Iranian ally.)
Iran is also now raising charging a new toll to get out of the strait.
“The IRGC has been charging ships up to $2 million per tanker to transit. Payment is accepted in Chinese yuan or cryptocurrencies, bypassing the dollar-based financial system and US sanctions,” said Manders.
Even Trump himself has floated the idea of a toll, suggesting the idea in an interview with ABC News’ Jon Karl Wednesday as part of a “joint venture” with Iran, whose civilization Trump threatened to end just a day earlier.
The strait’s future has real impacts on everyday Americans: Average gas prices are up 40%, about $1.18, per gallon since the start of the war, according to AAA. Getting gas prices back to the pre-war $3 a gallon level is still a long way off, even if oil begins to flow freely again.
“If this continues for another week or two, the consequences not just for energy prices but for the global economy are dire,” McMonigle said. “This is a very tenuous ceasefire.”
--- ends ---
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/09/business/shipping-vessels-oil-ceasefire-strait-of-hormuz [10-Apr-2026]
Yeah, it's all good news, eh?!?
No wonder the ASX is up so much for the week.
Or is the market just mispricing risk?
We never seem to fail to find a foothold while climbing the wall of worry.
P.S. I have cancelled my AFR subscription, so I'm in run-off now, i.e. I still have AFR access until my subscription expires in a week or two. After that it's down to the WA Newspaper (which is $32/month vs the AFR which is $70/m and about to go higher, plus WA News has most of my gold mining news in it because most of the gold mines are in WA) and free sources. I'm cancelling a variety of non-essential subs this month, including a gym membership I no longer use. All money saved (or not wasted) is more money to invest.
