Australia’s banks are being targeted by increasingly sophisticated fake-document operations.

Fraudsters are selling falsified payslips, bank statements and other financial documents designed to help borrowers get around lenders’ verification processes.

According to the AFR, these are no longer necessarily crude Photoshop jobs.

Some operators are producing documents sophisticated enough to pass automated checks, while others provide entire “document packs” for loan applications.

The scale is significant.

AUSTRAC referred about 200 mortgage brokers, lawyers, accountants and other companies to police, tax officials and regulators after an investigation into suspected mortgage-market fraud.

Westpac reportedly found $1 billion in fraudulent loans, while another investigation identified a syndicate linked to $4 billion across CBA, NAB, Westpac and Macquarie.

One fraud investigator says mortgage fraud is now probably the No. 1 topic in the industry.

Perhaps the most interesting development is that AI is making document fraud easier and harder to detect.

The traditional question was:
“Is this document genuine?”

Increasingly, lenders may need to ask:
“Is the person, income and financial story represented by this document genuine?”

*”Document farms” typically refer to unlawful operations that mass-produce fake or heavily altered paperwork—such as payslips, bank statements, and tax files—to trick lenders during loan applications. In a legitimate agricultural context, the term can also mistakenly conflate with farm record-keeping, data portals, or documentary films about modern farming.