China News Service, January 24. According to Hong Kong's "Ta Kung Pao" report, on the 23rd, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority issued a public consultation document, proposing to expand the inter-bank information sharing platform (FINEST) from corporate accounts to personal accounts, that is, allowing authorized institutions to To exchange personal customer account information for the purpose of preventing or detecting financial crime.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority issued a consultation paper on the 23rd titled "Recommendations on the exchange of information by authorized institutions to assist in the prevention or detection of crime". It is recommended that when banks notice in the future that there are signs that customers, accounts or transactions may be involved in criminal activities, they can contact other banks. Issue alerts to help block illicit funds and eliminate message differences between banks so they can be exploited by fraudsters.
The consultation period ends on March 29 this year.
The document mentioned that there are six main types of information that licensed banks are allowed to exchange, including: bank account numbers; personal information of customers or counterparties who are natural persons (such as name, date of birth and identity card number); legal persons, trusts or Information on any beneficial owners or related parties of clients of trust-like legal arrangements, such as corporate directors, partners or trustees; and the reasons why the transaction or activity may involve fraud, money laundering or terrorist financing, etc.
The consultation paper recommends that relevant information will be exchanged through secure channels, including dedicated electronic platforms such as FINEST.
In addition, the HKMA will take appropriate measures to ensure that relevant channels comply with strict cybersecurity and other relevant requirements, including restricting access rights to only designated employees of authorized institutions.
Yue Weiman, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, said that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority will be responsible for supervising banks' compliance with relevant control measures, and will also issue comprehensive guidelines on the exchange of information and how banks should comply with various requirements on processing information.
With the support of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Police, the Hong Kong Association of Banks launched FINEST in June last year to allow five large retail banks in Hong Kong to exchange information when suspicious criminal activities are discovered.
However, Yu Weiwen pointed out that since FINEST currently only covers corporate accounts, and currently "most of the puppet accounts are held in personal names," it is very difficult for banks to identify them.
Financial legislator Chan Chun-ying said that the consultation document has shown that the purpose of the relevant proposals is to combat the increasingly rampant fraud cases. After five retail banks cooperated to exchange information, it has proven to be very effective in preventing citizens from being deceived or intercepting fraudulent funds.
If we can further expand the scope of participating banks and extend the sharing of information to individuals, I believe the effect in preventing fraud will be even more significant.
The sharing platform will operate under the supervision of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which can also reduce the risk of data misuse.
He personally strongly supports this direction and firmly believes that the banking industry will also cooperate.
The Hong Kong Association of Banks welcomes the HKMA’s consultation on the relevant proposals and describes the proposals as consistent with recent research directions in other financial centres.
Lin Huihong, Chairman of the Banking Association, said that the industry has always been committed to combating financial crimes and working hard to protect customers from related risks.
The Association of Banks will continue to communicate with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and reflect the opinions of the banking industry.