A former CBA home lending executive deliberately concealed his relationship with a mortgage broker during an internal investigation, the Fair Work Commission has found.
Former Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) home lending executive Shun Wang deliberately concealed his relationship with a mortgage broker during an internal investigation, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) has found, rejecting his challenge to the bank’s decision to sack him.
Deputy president Gerard Boyce dismissed Wang’s unfair dismissal application on Monday (2 November), finding that the former lender had misled investigators about a broker involved with customers whose loans he approved.
Boyce concluded the dismissal was “wholly justified and not unfair” and assessed Wang’s evidence as “wholly unreliable”.
The decision also upheld findings concerning inadequate income verification and the disclosure of customer information through WeChat.
Wang joined CBA in November 2020 after working at St George and was responsible for assessing and approving home loan applications.
CBA dismissed him on 29 July 2025, and he then lodged his unfair dismissal claim on 18 August 2025.
The case centred on Wang’s explanations about Hugo Feng, a man one customer identified as their mortgage broker, with communications connecting him with an accredited referrer.
CBA suspected payments to Feng could represent prohibited broker participation in its referral program; however, the commission made no finding that kickbacks were paid.
Whistleblower report exposes recurring referral connections
An anonymous report to CBA’s whistleblower service on 19 November 2024 raised concerns about Wang and four other employees.
Investigators reviewed loans Wang had refinanced from St George and identified recurring connections between borrowers, referrers and an accounting firm.
The probe found that many applicants were self-employed, with businesses reporting substantial revenue and that they had been introduced through JS Sonic or Regis Lawyers, both accredited referral partners, and supplied company financial statements prepared by Accountants Direct.
From April 2024 to January 2025, JS Sonic introduced 17 customers to Wang, with those referrals generating 29 home loan applications and 22 being funded.
CBA’s referral program allows approved professionals, including accountants, lawyers and real estate agents, to receive commissions for introducing customers, yet mortgage brokers and builders are prohibited from participating.
The program also restricts communication about applicants, and lenders must not disclose customer information to referrers, whose financial interest increases with the size of the loan and may conflict with the interests of the borrower and bank.
Investigators subsequently identified substantial payments to Feng, who was not an accredited referrer.
Five JS Sonic customers paid him $48,595.50 collectively around the processing or approval of their loans and between August 2023 and February 2025. JS Sonic made six payments totalling $81,146.44, while Regis Lawyers made six totalling $61,441.62.
Transaction descriptions included “service fee” and “referral fee”, with one customer telling CBA they had used Feng as their mortgage broker.
CBA regarded those transactions as a “red flag”, suspecting Feng was directing borrowers through JS Sonic and “getting kickback payments akin to referral source commission payments for such referrals”.
CBA removed JS Sonic and Regis Lawyers from its referral program in April 2025.
Phone evidence undermines Wang’s changing explanations
At his first interview on 14 May 2025, Wang denied knowing Feng, telling investigators he had “no idea” who he was.
When asked to surrender his work mobile phone, however, Wang raised the possibility that it contained a contact named Hugo who was a prospective customer.
The subsequent examination uncovered a contact linked to Feng’s CBA customer profile, messages and missed calls.
Other customers mentioned Hugo in communications with Wang, while email trails showed Hugo sending mortgage documents to customers.
Messages from August 2024 included a customer thanking both Wang and Hugo.
During a second interview, Wang acknowledged participating in a WeChat group named “JS Sonic” alongside the referrer and Hugo, claiming that customer leads arrived through the group, and that he supplied updates about loan approvals and settlements.
Wang maintained that JS Sonic had introduced him to Hugo years earlier as a potential customer, but claimed this was not the Hugo Feng investigators were asking about.
Confronted with the matching telephone number, Wang offered no explanation for the apparent connection.
He told investigators he “had nothing to say because I don’t even know that”.
Wang later advanced an explanation that he knew the man as “Old Hu” and also admitted deleting WeChat records, while denying that he had received a direct referral from Hugo and maintaining that he believed the loans were not fraudulent.
Boyce rejected the suggestion that Wang’s initial denial reflected genuine confusion, finding that he “knew exactly who Hugo was at the first meeting, but thought he could get away with pretending otherwise”.
“[Wang’s] narrative around his confusion about Hugo being Old Hu is not only unbridled nonsense, but a complete fabrication,” he said.
More broadly, Boyce found the falsity of Wang’s evidence was “inescapable”, delivering a damning assessment of his testimony.
“I find that the Applicant’s evidence at the hearing was a chaotic collection of lies, nonsense, poorly matched ideas, and manufactured responses,” he said.
The deleted communications also left gaps in the available evidence, with Boyce stating what was actually discussed “will never be known” and did not accept Wang’s claim that the disclosures were confined to loan approvals.
Income omissions and dishonesty support dismissal
CBA advanced four allegations against Wang, encompassing failures to verify ongoing income, inappropriate information sharing and dishonesty during its investigation.
The income concerns involved borrowers treated as self-employed whose bank statements also showed regular wages.
Wang omitted PAYG employment income from two applications and acknowledged shortcomings in his verification.
He said he had been “lazy to verify the PAYG income” because it was “hard to verify”.
Wang also admitted sharing loan updates with the referrer and Hugo through WeChat, contrary to CBA’s policy and contested the finding that he had deliberately misled investigators.
Boyce upheld the bank’s allegations and found that Wang had also “sought to intentionally mislead the commission”.
Boyce further rejected Wang’s argument that the resulting damage to his employment prospects made the dismissal unfair.
“The consequences that flow from the Applicant’s conduct (financially and reputationally) are all on him,” he said.
Referral arrangements face broader regulatory scrutiny
The ruling arrives amid heightened scrutiny of mortgage origination and relationships between bank employees, brokers and introducers.
In February 2026, CBA reported concerns to police and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) involving approximately $1 billion in suspected fraudulent home loans.
Subsequent reporting has put suspected lending across the industry above $3 billion.
Introducer programs have attracted particular criticism, with then Finance Brokers Association of Australia (FBAA) chief executive Peter White in April calling for the programs to be eliminated.
Separately, NSW Police charged former NAB and CBA employee Huy Tin Nguyen and his mortgage broker wife, Thu Huong Nguyen of HTN Finance, in May over alleged involvement with the Penthouse Syndicate.
Police alleged Nguyen used knowledge of bank processes and fraud-detection systems to assist the syndicate, with charges against his wife concerning almost $13 million in alleged loan fraud.
AUSTRAC’s Operation Claw has meanwhile identified potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in suspected fraudulent loans through analysis involving 10 major Australian banks.
The operation found evidence of inflated incomes, misrepresented employment and fabricated or unverifiable businesses, with some brokers, accountants and law firms appearing repeatedly across suspect applications.
AUSTRAC referred intelligence to law enforcement and regulatory agencies.
ASIC’s forthcoming lender-conduct review will examine referrer arrangements, lender oversight of brokers and changes to proprietary-lender incentives.
Expected to begin in the third quarter of 2026–27, it extends scrutiny across the channels through which mortgages are originated and approved.
[Related: Experian’s fraud chief says AI documents ‘near impossible’ to detect]
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