Banking fraud case leads to 3-year ban

The Securities and Futures Commission has banned Lin Qifeng, a former executive of Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), from re-entering the industry for three years.

The Eastern Magistrates' Court ruled that Lin Qifeng and his mother conspired to defraud Standard Chartered Bank of HK$4,520 in quarterly bonuses between April and December 2017.

When Lin served as the director of customer development at Standard Chartered Bank, five customers were prompted by his mother to open payroll accounts at the bank through him. To improve his work performance at the bank, Lin's mother then transferred multiple sums ranging from HK$80,000 to HK$200,000 from her personal bank account to the five payroll accounts.

Later, to restore the relevant transactions, Lin transferred the same amount of money from the payroll accounts to his mother's personal bank account without authorization from the five clients.

The bank included the money transferred by his mother to the five payroll accounts in his performance review and awarded him an additional quarterly bonus of HK$4,520.

As Lin was convicted of a criminal offence, the commission considered that he was not a qualified person to be licensed or registered for regulated activities.