Hong Kong has once again been named in global investigations into breaches of anti-money laundering rules at an international bank. Australia’s financial watchdog, Austrac has filed a case against Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) – one of the country’s “big four” banks – alleging some AUS$ 90 million (US$70.9 million) of laundered money was deposited at CBA Intelligent Deposit Machines (IDM) in Australia.
According to the statement of a claim, filed by the regulator, some of that was then transferred immediately to bank accounts in Hong Kong, adding that three arrests had already been made in the city, regarding the case…Read More

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is committed to improving the overall security level of the banking system, through efforts including working on various technologies related to the banking business, a HKMA media manager told the Global Times.
The HKMA is reported to have recently issued a notification to local banks asking them to collect data on ATM cash withdrawals from UnionPay cards in the first half of the yea, domestic news site finance.qq.com said on Monday...Read More

A 43-year-old man of Nepalese ethnicity was arrested after trying to deposit six suspected counterfeit HK$1,000 (US$128) notes in a bank in Yau Ma Tei, in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district, on Friday. At 9:30am, the man – named Rai – tried to deposit the notes at a branch of Hang Seng Bank on 363 Nathan Road, Wen Wei Po reported.
The teller, surnamed Lai, observed that the man, who is said to be a Hong Kong ID card holder, looked suspicious when he handed her the banknotes. She also found that the paper quality of the banknotes was lower than that of genuine ones, alerting her to the fact that they might be counterfeit... Read More

A 23-year-old woman lost her parents’ life savings after two con artists pretending to be a Hong Kong immigration officer and a mainland official duped her out of HK$1 million. The woman – a recent graduate – told police the money belonged to her parents and she was managing it for them, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.
It is understood that the victim is the oldest of two children, and had been living with her parents, both blue-collar workers, in Sha Tin since moving to the city from the mainland in 2005... Read More