Latest news with #MacquarieBank
Business Times
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
Australian PM touts practical cooperation during Shanghai visit
[SHANGHAI] Australia looks forward to deepening practical cooperation and promoting sustained development of bilateral relations with China, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday (Jul 13) in Shanghai. The Australian leader's comments were carried in a statement posted on the Shanghai local government's official Wechat account. Canberra hopes to further strengthen economic and trade cooperation and jointly promote green and low-carbon development, Albanese told Shanghai Communist Party Secretary Chen Jining. Shanghai welcomes Australian companies to invest in the city, China's second largest, Chen said. 'We know the one in four of Australia's jobs depends upon free and fair trade. And our biggest export partner is China,' Albanese said in a video carried on the Global Times' official Wechat account. 'Engaging with China is in our interests to build a stable and secure region.' Albanese was visiting China for the first time since being re-elected in a landslide in May. He's trying to balance an increasingly confrontational relationship between the US and China – respectively, Australia's historic security ally and its biggest trading partner. He also needs to navigate a more complicated regional security environment as China becomes more assertive in the Asia-Pacific. China in February conducted live-fire naval exercises in the Tasman Sea off Australia's east coast, which Albanese said at the time was within international law but for which he would have liked more notice. The prime minister will visit through Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu, describing the visit as a 'further demonstration of the good relations' between the nations. China's economic heft is significant given it takes a quarter of Australia's exports, from iron ore to lobsters and wine. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong warned on Thursday about 'the worrying pace of China's nuclear and conventional military build up,' highlighting that Beijing aims to change the balance of power in the region. A delegation of corporate executives – including from Macquarie Bank and HSBC Holdings' BHP Group is travelling with Albanese. His visit will include a CEO round table in Beijing on Tuesday and an international supply chain Expo that China is hosting. BLOOMBERG
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ex-broker's $68k fraud of major bank
A former financial broker gained $68,000 in commissions by forging tax accountant letters for people who were not entitled to business loans for cars through a major Aussie bank, a court has been told. Charleen Henegan's conduct was undone by her own hand, after she wrote a letter to Macquarie Bank admitting to creating the letters on 18 occasions, allowing several people to obtain business loans they were not entitled to. Macquarie Bank paid out $729,000 as a result, Brisbane District Court was told. In lieu of a jail term, Henegan walked from court on Tuesday with an 18-month suspended sentence, after pleading guilty to a single charge of fraud - dishonestly inducing a person to act. District Court Judge Deborah Richards noted an irony at the heart of Henegan's offending, in that she committed the offence out of significant 'financial pressure' at the time, yet had paid the 'ultimate price … (of) financial ruin'. 'You've lost your finance brokerage, you won't be licensed again,' Judge Richards said. 'There's been a very heavy financial penalty that you've paid for this offending, for not particularly significant reward.' The court was told Henegan's co-accused was a car dealer who set about obtaining business loans from Macquarie Leasing – a subsidiary of the bank – for his prospective customers. In order to secure the business loans, the co-accused inflated the value of the vehicles through a combination of falsifying tax invoices, winding back odometers and instructing 'customers to create ABN numbers' for their loan applications. Henegan became involved as a passive financial broker for these applications, crown prosecutor Rhys Byrne said. 'As part of a business loan application, Macquarie Leasing usually requires a letter from an accountant to confirm the car was being used for business purposes,' Mr Byrne said. Between December 2018 and April 2019, Henegan forged accountant letters on 18 occasions, falsely asserting customers were entitled to a business loan. Mr Byrne said Henegan received $68,000 in brokerage commission as a result. An investigation began in 2019 over the irregularities. Henegan admitted to Macquarie Leasing in a letter that she had used old account letter templates to forge the documents and that she was under financial pressure at the time, Mr Byrne said. Justice Richards questioned this, saying: 'She could have just said no'. She also noted Henegan was not 'entirely ignorant' of what she was doing, saying police found emails on her computer with customer pay slips, demonstrating they were not self-employed or sole traders. 'There was also an email found on your computer from the car company telling you exactly what these false letters should say … that the vehicles would be used predominantly for business … and the tax was up to date,' Judge Richards said. Henegan's barrister Evan O'Hanlon-Rose said the offending was an 'uncharacteristic aberration' in the life of his otherwise law-abiding client. 'The combination of all that was going on in her life at the time led to an impairment of judgment,' he said. The court was told Henegan's co-accused – who was described as the 'driver' of the offending – was sentenced to two years' jail, suspended after 140 days in pre-sentence custody. Mr O'Hanlon-Rose said Henegan's offending was not as serious as the co-accused's, due to him being involved in 24 loans that resulted in Macquarie Bank paying out just over $1m. Henegan was subjected to significant financial and personal pressure at the time due to the combination of writing the letters, her own business experiencing problems and the death of a family member weighing on her. Several references attested to Henegan's good character. She is currently the primary financial and practical carer for her husband, who is awaiting open heart surgery following a heart attack in 2022, Mr O'Hanlon-Rose said. 'She is a woman who has been self-reliant from a very early age,' Mr O'Hanlon-Rose said. 'She's worked hard to achieve success in the financial services industry and her poor decision making has destroyed that work.' Judge Richards took into account Henegan's significant remorse and 'shame', imposing an 18-month sentence, suspended immediately for three years. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data


Perth Now
08-07-2025
- Business
- Perth Now
Ex-broker's $68k fraud of major bank
A former financial broker gained $68,000 in commissions by forging tax accountant letters for people who were not entitled to business loans for cars through a major Aussie bank, a court has been told. Charleen Henegan's conduct was undone by her own hand, after she wrote a letter to Macquarie Bank admitting to creating the letters on 18 occasions, allowing several people to obtain business loans they were not entitled to. Macquarie Bank paid out $729,000 as a result, Brisbane District Court was told. In lieu of a jail term, Henegan walked from court on Tuesday with an 18-month suspended sentence, after pleading guilty to a single charge of fraud - dishonestly inducing a person to act. District Court Judge Deborah Richards noted an irony at the heart of Henegan's offending, in that she committed the offence out of significant 'financial pressure' at the time, yet had paid the 'ultimate price … (of) financial ruin'. Charleen Henegan received a suspended jail term after pleading guilty to a single charge of fraud, related to her forging tax accountant letters for customers to obtain a business loan through Macquarie Lending. NewsWire Credit: News Corp Australia 'You've lost your finance brokerage, you won't be licensed again,' Judge Richards said. 'There's been a very heavy financial penalty that you've paid for this offending, for not particularly significant reward.' The court was told Henegan's co-accused was a car dealer who set about obtaining business loans from Macquarie Leasing – a subsidiary of the bank – for his prospective customers. In order to secure the business loans, the co-accused inflated the value of the vehicles through a combination of falsifying tax invoices, winding back odometers and instructing 'customers to create ABN numbers' for their loan applications. Henegan became involved as a passive financial broker for these applications, crown prosecutor Rhys Byrne said. 'As part of a business loan application, Macquarie Leasing usually requires a letter from an accountant to confirm the car was being used for business purposes,' Mr Byrne said. Macquarie Bank ultimately paid out $729,000 in loans as a result. Dan Peled / NewsWire Credit: News Corp Australia Between December 2018 and April 2019, Henegan forged accountant letters on 18 occasions, falsely asserting customers were entitled to a business loan. Mr Byrne said Henegan received $68,000 in brokerage commission as a result. An investigation began in 2019 over the irregularities. Henegan admitted to Macquarie Leasing in a letter that she had used old account letter templates to forge the documents and that she was under financial pressure at the time, Mr Byrne said. Justice Richards questioned this, saying: 'She could have just said no'. She also noted Henegan was not 'entirely ignorant' of what she was doing, saying police found emails on her computer with customer pay slips, demonstrating they were not self-employed or sole traders. Henegan (centre) obtained $68,000 in brokerage commission as a result, but admitted to the bank in her own letter that she forged the 18 letters. NewsWire Credit: News Corp Australia The court was told Henegan had demonstrated significant remorse and her offending was out of character. NewsWire Credit: News Corp Australia 'There was also an email found on your computer from the car company telling you exactly what these false letters should say … that the vehicles would be used predominantly for business … and the tax was up to date,' Judge Richards said. Henegan's barrister Evan O'Hanlon-Rose said the offending was an 'uncharacteristic aberration' in the life of his otherwise law-abiding client. 'The combination of all that was going on in her life at the time led to an impairment of judgment,' he said. The court was told Henegan's co-accused – who was described as the 'driver' of the offending – was sentenced to two years' jail, suspended after 140 days in pre-sentence custody. Mr O'Hanlon-Rose said Henegan's offending was not as serious as the co-accused's, due to him being involved in 24 loans that resulted in Macquarie Bank paying out just over $1m. Henegan was subjected to significant financial and personal pressure at the time due to the combination of writing the letters, her own business experiencing problems and the death of a family member weighing on her. Several references attested to Henegan's good character. She is currently the primary financial and practical carer for her husband, who is awaiting open heart surgery following a heart attack in 2022, Mr O'Hanlon-Rose said. 'She is a woman who has been self-reliant from a very early age,' Mr O'Hanlon-Rose said. 'She's worked hard to achieve success in the financial services industry and her poor decision making has destroyed that work.' Judge Richards took into account Henegan's significant remorse and 'shame', imposing an 18-month sentence, suspended immediately for three years.

News.com.au
08-07-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Macquarie Bank paid out $729k after ex-broker forged letters for business loans, claimed $68k commission: court
A former financial broker gained $68,000 in commissions by forging tax accountant letters for people who were not entitled to business loans for cars through a major Aussie bank, a court has been told. Charleen Henegan's conduct was undone by her own hand, after she wrote a letter to Macquarie Bank admitting to creating the letters on 18 occasions, allowing several people to obtain business loans they were not entitled to. Macquarie Bank paid out $729,000 as a result, Brisbane District Court was told. In lieu of a jail term, Henegan walked from court on Tuesday with an 18-month suspended sentence, after pleading guilty to a single charge of fraud - dishonestly inducing a person to act. District Court Judge Deborah Richards noted an irony at the heart of Henegan's offending, in that she committed the offence out of significant 'financial pressure' at the time, yet had paid the 'ultimate price … (of) financial ruin'. 'You've lost your finance brokerage, you won't be licensed again,' Judge Richards said. 'There's been a very heavy financial penalty that you've paid for this offending, for not particularly significant reward.' The court was told Henegan's co-accused was a car dealer who set about obtaining business loans from Macquarie Leasing – a subsidiary of the bank – for his prospective customers. In order to secure the business loans, the co-accused inflated the value of the vehicles through a combination of falsifying tax invoices, winding back odometers and instructing 'customers to create ABN numbers' for their loan applications. Henegan became involved as a passive financial broker for these applications, crown prosecutor Rhys Byrne said. 'As part of a business loan application, Macquarie Leasing usually requires a letter from an accountant to confirm the car was being used for business purposes,' Mr Byrne said. Between December 2018 and April 2019, Henegan forged accountant letters on 18 occasions, falsely asserting customers were entitled to a business loan. Mr Byrne said Henegan received $68,000 in brokerage commission as a result. An investigation began in 2019 over the irregularities. Henegan admitted to Macquarie Leasing in a letter that she had used old account letter templates to forge the documents and that she was under financial pressure at the time, Mr Byrne said. Justice Richards questioned this, saying: 'She could have just said no'. She also noted Henegan was not 'entirely ignorant' of what she was doing, saying police found emails on her computer with customer pay slips, demonstrating they were not self-employed or sole traders. 'There was also an email found on your computer from the car company telling you exactly what these false letters should say … that the vehicles would be used predominantly for business … and the tax was up to date,' Judge Richards said. Henegan's barrister Evan O'Hanlon-Rose said the offending was an 'uncharacteristic aberration' in the life of his otherwise law-abiding client. 'The combination of all that was going on in her life at the time led to an impairment of judgment,' he said. The court was told Henegan's co-accused – who was described as the 'driver' of the offending – was sentenced to two years' jail, suspended after 140 days in pre-sentence custody. Mr O'Hanlon-Rose said Henegan's offending was not as serious as the co-accused's, due to him being involved in 24 loans that resulted in Macquarie Bank paying out just over $1m. Henegan was subjected to significant financial and personal pressure at the time due to the combination of writing the letters, her own business experiencing problems and the death of a family member weighing on her. Several references attested to Henegan's good character. She is currently the primary financial and practical carer for her husband, who is awaiting open heart surgery following a heart attack in 2022, Mr O'Hanlon-Rose said. 'She is a woman who has been self-reliant from a very early age,' Mr O'Hanlon-Rose said. 'She's worked hard to achieve success in the financial services industry and her poor decision making has destroyed that work.' Judge Richards took into account Henegan's significant remorse and 'shame', imposing an 18-month sentence, suspended immediately for three years.

AU Financial Review
18-06-2025
- Business
- AU Financial Review
Smarter, relevant search is reshaping the future of generative AI
'But at the same time, I'm already seeing countless examples of how Australian businesses are putting the technology to work in meaningful ways.' Relevance is the missing piece Among the early adopters is one of the nation's largest banks, Macquarie, where relevancy breakthroughs are helping deliver smarter digital services. Macquarie Bank's chief digital officer Luis Uguina says search has become a strategic lever. 'Leveraging GenAI's ability to provide contextually relevant and highly personalised search results has significantly reduced the time it takes to retrieve and extract critical information, both for our customers and internal teams,' says Uguina. That shift is freeing employees from repetitive tasks so they can focus on innovating and continuing to improve customer experiences. 'Customers now receive answers that are not only accurate but also aligned with their specific needs and preferences,' Uguina says. 'That's resulted in increased engagement and satisfaction, with noticeable improvements in metrics like customer recommendation scores.' For GenAI to deliver this kind of value, speed and scale are not enough. Relevance - in context, in real time - is what makes the difference. 'There will, of course, be challenges along the way,' says Pell. 'While we're seeing lots of successful GenAI use cases, an organisation's approach to data management can pose significant challenges to the success of its projects.' And the shift is happening across sectors. In mining, BHP is using GenAI to analyse complex, interdependent operational variables. In retail, Coles is extracting insights from thousands of customer survey comments. In finance, firms like Macquarie are anticipating user intent with precision. Underpinning these advances are techniques like retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which enhance LLM responses with proprietary data. By feeding AI systems with business-specific context, RAG helps organisations move beyond generic outputs. It allows them to use their own internal knowledge base to improve accuracy and usefulness. 'All organisations have a responsibility to mitigate security risks, eliminate blind spots in their security posture and identify and respond to threats quickly,' Pell says. For Macquarie, proprietary data is a cornerstone of their AI strategy. Ashwin Sinha, the bank's chief data and AI officer, says it gives the organisation a competitive edge. 'Proprietary data plays a crucial role in enhancing search outcomes by providing unique insights,' Sinha says. 'It allows us to deliver more accurate, relevant and personalised results, tailored to the specific needs of our customers.' Macquarie's internal datasets are used to model customer intent and streamline service workflows. 'It means we can anticipate user needs more effectively and provide results that are not only accurate but also contextually meaningful,' Uguina says. But it's not just about performance - trust and governance remain key. 'We ensure that the use of proprietary data is handled responsibly, adhering to strict privacy and ethical guidelines to maintain trust with our customers,' Sinha says. Solving for complexity and compliance Getting to that point has meant solving for both complexity and compliance. 'One of the primary challenges we encountered was balancing the complexity of advanced search algorithms with the need for speed, accuracy and efficiency,' Sinha says. Optimising infrastructure, adopting distributed computing, and building in privacy protections such as encryption and differential privacy were part of the solution. 'We implemented rigorous testing and validation processes, as well as ongoing audits of our algorithms,' Sinha says. Transparency and user feedback loops were also built in to detect and address any unintended outcomes quickly. The payoff has been measurable. Uguina says GenAI-based search techniques have improved the customer experience and internal operations. 'One of the most notable outcomes has been a substantial improvement in our digital experience, with user satisfaction increasing and our online help resources more useful for our customers,' says Uguina. At the enterprise level, search is also streamlining knowledge retrieval. 'It has enhanced enterprise knowledge retrieval by surfacing actionable insights from vast datasets,' Sinha says. 'That's improved decision-making and increased operational efficiencies.' Elastic's Pell says this type of capability is now essential. 'Most businesses have vast amounts of structured and unstructured data, and the key to unlocking tremendous value from both is to be able to find, analyse, and use data from any source in real time,' Pell says. This is particularly evident in customer-facing applications. While many companies began with GenAI-powered chatbots, more advanced use cases are now emerging. In retail, this includes intelligent product recommendations and real-time sentiment analysis. In financial services and telecoms, it's about speeding up transactions and supporting staff with personalised data. 'There is also a role for generative AI in transactions where human-to-human interaction remains vital, by enabling call centre staff and bank tellers to access relevant, up-to-date data fast and efficiently, giving them the real-time insights they need to resolve issues faster and keep wait times to a minimum,' Pell says. 'It can also provide these employees with personalised recommendations to pass on to their customers.' Security is another area seeing rapid change. With cyber threats on the rise, organisations are starting to use GenAI and search to boost their defensive posture. According to the Australian Signals Directorate, financial losses from cybercrime continue to grow, with average costs per incident reaching $30,700 last financial year. Security teams are using AI-enhanced search to surface relevant signals faster and receive guided recommendations for action. 'Having a search platform helps modernise security operations by providing greater context that includes both public and private data related to security issues,' Pell says. Despite the promise, businesses remain mindful of the risks. Concerns around bias, data sovereignty and regulatory uncertainty are front of mind, especially in sectors like finance, health and government. Pell notes that while GenAI offers clear benefits, many organisations remain unsure how to proceed because 'the absence of specific regulations in this country creates uncertainty regarding compliance', particularly in sectors such as banking, healthcare and the public sector, which must still align new models with APRA's stringent data protection guardrails. Sinha agrees that governance is crucial. 'Advanced search techniques often rely on very large datasets, which can sometimes introduce biases or inaccuracies,' he says. For that reason, Macquarie invested early in frameworks to monitor fairness and build privacy-preserving systems. Even with these guardrails, the momentum is clear. Elastic research shows 88 per cent of Australian IT decision-makers expect to increase their AI investment. The Tech Council of Australia estimates GenAI could add $115 billion to the economy annually by 2030. The next frontier - conversational AI Looking ahead, Macquarie's Uguina sees conversational, intent-aware search as the next frontier. 'Generative AI is making it possible for users to interact with search systems in a more natural, dialogue-like manner,' he says. 'That evolution is transforming search into a more dynamic and personalised experience.' Sinha says the implications for decision-making are profound. 'AI allows us to process vast amounts of data - from transaction histories to market trends - and surface insights that were previously inaccessible,' he says. 'It also enables better risk management by detecting anomalies or threats in real time.' Ultimately, Uguina says, it's about shifting from reactive to proactive. 'With advancements in machine learning and AI, banks will be able to anticipate the needs of their customers before they arise,' he says. 'This shift will make banking not just a transactional experience but a truly supportive one.' As generative AI continues to evolve, the real differentiator will be its ability to deliver relevant, timely, context-aware outcomes. Organisations that get search right won't just improve productivity - they'll unlock entirely new ways to serve, protect and engage their customers.