Fair Work Commission steps in, demanding clearer explanations for banking giant’s staff
Commonwealth Bank of Australia is under mounting pressure after the Finance Sector Union (FSU) accused the lender of quietly transferring technology and retail banking jobs to India, despite assurances to staff that local positions were not being replaced offshore.
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) has now intervened, directing CBA to provide clearer explanations to affected staff about how Australian roles differ from those in its expanding Indian operations.
A redundancy process under challenge
In June, the bank announced 283 redundancies across technology and retail services. At the time, it denied those positions were being moved abroad. But subsequent proceedings before the FWC revealed at least two Australian roles were effectively being replicated at CBA India.
Commissioner Katrina Harper-Greenwell found CBA had conceded some of the cuts corresponded to existing jobs in Bangalore. The bank later acknowledged “regret not having identified sooner that two Product Owner roles are being relocated to India as part of these changes.”
The FSU, however, argues the problem runs deeper. The union says dozens of new Indian-based roles carried the same or very similar job titles as positions being made redundant in Australia, with many of those ads quietly pulled once the overlap was exposed.
The FSU took a win today, saying: “CBA may have thought they could quietly sack hundreds of Australian workers without proper scrutiny – but today we have held the bank to account by demanding greater transparency.”
In a written response to questions asked by the FSU, CBA said: “The FSU expressed a concern that vacancies in CBA India mean the Australian roles aren’t genuinely redundant and made an application to the Fair Work Commission to deal with a dispute.
“As a result of that dispute, we re-reviewed the impacted roles and identified two roles, out of the 283 roles made redundant, where the duties were relocated, respectively, to a newly created Product Manager role in India and to an existing Senior Engineer role, also in India.
“While some job titles are the same, they reflect group-wide naming conventions and do not mean the roles are the same.”
CBA cited Data Engineer roles that were made redundant in Australia, which were tied to the Omnia platform. The Data Engineer roles in India “are unrelated to Omnia”, CBA said.
The move of offshoring roles is legal in Australia, but the union is accusing CBA of defying Clause 36 of its agreement which defines redundancy. Redundancy can occur, according to the clause, if the work is no longer required; the work is required to be done at a different location that is not within reasonable commuting distance’ or if the work is restructured so that the tasks are split up to other positions.
Union concern over job losses
FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano has accused the bank of treating staff with a lack of candour.
“This is all about cost cutting,” she said. “Our members are really concerned with the use of offshoring because it means fewer opportunities for them.”
She said the strategy undermines CBA’s public commitments to invest in domestic tech skills while, in practice, shifting work to cheaper overseas hubs. According to the union, Indian workers may be paid a third or even a quarter of equivalent Australian salaries.
The FSU has taken the bank to the FWC multiple times in recent years over restructuring moves, including a dispute about 45 jobs that were due to be replaced with AI.
But Angrisano said the union’s ability to act is constrained, because current consultation requirements in enterprise agreements give staff little leverage in the face of large-scale technological change.
“These consultation clauses are no longer fit for purpose,” she said.
Growth offshore, profits at home
The numbers highlight the structural shift. The FSU has determined that CBA’s Indian headcount doubled between 2022 and 2024, while local roles have edged lower.
CBA also reported a record $10.2 billion profit after tax in August.
For analysts, the appeal is obvious: offshore staffing has helped offset domestic wage pressures and rising technology costs.
UBS analyst John Storey noted in a report this week that reliance on Indian operations has “partially mitigated” higher labour expenses. But he also flagged a risk that union and political pressure could eventually force banks to bring more jobs back onshore, increasing costs.
Wider banking sector trend
CBA is not alone. ANZ has signalled plans to eliminate 3,500 positions while NAB announced more than 400 redundancies in September.
Angrisano warned that without tighter regulation, more of Australia’s banking and technology workforce could disappear offshore. “This is about accountability; Australia’s largest bank cannot quietly ship jobs offshore while telling staff and customers otherwise,” she said.
For those in the mortgage industry, the developments at CBA and other big banks have two potential consequences.
Firstly, technology functions underpinning digital mortgage processing, compliance, and customer service may be increasingly handled offshore, raising questions about oversight and continuity.
Secondly, cost savings achieved by shifting staff abroad could influence banks’ willingness to invest domestically in lending platforms and broker support services.
CBA’s tussle with the FSU underscores the tension between shareholder returns, workforce stability, and the transparency demanded by both employees and regulators.
