Hong Kong banks to get new powers to trace, flag suspicious accounts linked to scams
Hong Kong banks will be granted powers to trace and flag suspicious accounts linked to scams by exchanging information with police, putting questionable transactions on hold and having officers meet clients in person.
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The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) on Thursday revealed a new system for information exchange as a part of joint efforts with police to clamp down on scams and money laundering crime amid rising deception cases in recent years.
The city's de facto central bank executive director Raymond Chan King-wang said the force would share with banks the suspicious phone numbers and email addresses already stored in Scameter, a search engine platform launched by police in 2022.
The banks will then flag corresponding accounts that match those credentials to review account activities, monitor future transactions, and report the newly-identified suspicious accounts to police.
'Through this continuous cycle, we hope to find out and uproot the mule accounts from all the banks,' Chan said.
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The executive director said that once bank staff were alerted of a transaction made to a suspicious account, they would contact account holders and tell them that a pending transaction would be temporarily put on hold. The clients would be asked to go to the bank for a meeting.
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