Broader powers sought to combat scams

Cici Cao

Nearly 300 suspicious money transactions have been recorded since a bank-to-bank information sharing platform was launched in June last year to combat scams, according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which suggests broadening the scope to personal accounts.

On average, 20 to 30 cases were recorded per month, while in some cases, related money transfers were successfully prevented, Raymond Chan King-wang, executive director of HKMA's enforcement and anti-money laundering department, told the Legislative Council's meeting yesterday.

The information sharing platform, known as the Financial Intelligence Evaluation Sharing Tool, currently focuses on company accounts suspected of being involved in money-laundering activities.

Chan suggests broadening the scope of information sharing to cover personal accounts to further help address fraud, citing that nearly 90 percent of mule accounts involved in fraud are individual accounts.

"The expanded information collection provides very useful clues to the police and the banking industry, and we hope it will be able to reveal the entire fraud syndicate. That is more effective than only targeting the individual mule accounts," said Chan.

He added that a broader sharing scope will not distinguish between local and overseas accounts because some overseas lawbreakers use local accounts opened by local individuals for money laundering.

Besides, lawbreakers can take advantage of message discrepancies between banks to transfer funds, as the current information sharing is conducted under the law enforcement agencies.

Regarding concerns about the abuse of the FINEST platform, Chan said that no irregularities have been detected since launching the platform, as it allows only banks to exchange information, as breaching the regulations will be prohibited.

Chan said police data shows the number of digital fraud cases recorded a 43 percent yearly increase to nearly 240,000 last year, valued at HK$9 billion, while 24,000 cases worth HK$5 billion were recorded in the first seven months of this year, an increase of 12 percent compared with the same period last year.

"Though the growth has slowed down, the figure is still rising. We still need to make more efforts to prevent digital fraud," Chan noted.

HKMA launched a consultation on expanding the scope of information sharing in January this year and received 18 submissions.