Compliance Corner: MAS, Hong Kong

Editorial Staff

16 March 2021

Monetary Authority of Singapore
Singapore’s main financial regulator said yesterday that Wong Leon Keat was sentenced on 12 March 2021 to a total of eight weeks’ imprisonment and fined $22,290 for false trading and deceiving a brokerage firm while trading in the shares of Gaylin Holdings Limited.

He was convicted on 11 February 2021 and his conviction was the result of a joint investigation conducted by the HK$7.2 million ($5.6 million) for not complying with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regulatory requirements when handling cash deposits and third party fund transfers.

The SFC’s investigation found that between April 2015 and October 2017, the firm had “routinely” processed 238 cash deposits, with an aggregate amount of more than $30 million; and 269 third-party transfers, with an aggregate amount of more than $900 million.

For cash deposits, the regulator said there is “no record of any enquiries” made by Sino-Rich’s staff with the clients and approvals by its responsible officers prior to January 2017. It was only after the SFC issued a management letter to Sino-Rich in November 2016 that Sino-Rich required its staff to record the reasons and the responsible officers’ approval for cash deposits, it said.

The SFC said that in third-party transfers, Sino-Rich’s staff were required to fill in the relevant third-party transfer forms. However, information such as the client’s relationship with the third party, the reason for the transfer and/or the client’s signature was not provided in around 40 per cent of the forms. The SFC also found that there were “numerous occasions” where the relationships or reasons stated do not include sufficient particulars to explain why the relevant clients had to use their securities/futures accounts at Sino-Rich to receive or route funds from/to third parties.