THE Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Monday (Aug 19) issued a nine-year prohibition order against Hoi Wei Kit, a former representative of OCBC, for misconduct.
Effective from Monday, Hoi will be barred from providing any financial advisory services, and from taking part in the management, acting as a director, or becoming a substantial shareholder of any financial advisory firm under the Financial Advisers Act.
Hoi was convicted in February 2022 of five counts of cheating, one count of acquiring benefits from criminal conduct and one count of giving false information to a public servant. For the purpose of sentencing, three counts of cheating and 10 counts of acquiring benefits from criminal conduct were also taken into consideration.
The offences come under Section 420 of the Penal Code and Section 47 of the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act.
Hoi was sentenced to 30 months’ imprisonment.
Between October 2017 and January 2018, he defrauded five OCBC customers by getting them to sign up for fictitious time deposit accounts that he claimed were being offered by the bank. This led to them transferring a total of S$170,000 out of their respective OCBC accounts, which Hoi then arranged to be transferred to his own bank account.
MAS said: “The convictions gave MAS reason to believe that Mr Hoi will not perform financial advisory services honestly.”
Hoi’s offence of giving false information to a public servant is unrelated to his financial advisory role in OCBC.
Last month, MAS issued a prohibition order against Sun Quan, executive director and former chief executive of China Capital Impetus Asset Management, for failing to secure the company’s compliance with the Securities and Futures (Licensing and Conduct of Business) Regulations.
