Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has prohibited Ms Wong Lai Suen, a former responsible officer (RO) and executive director of MTF Securities Limited (MTF), from re-entering the industry for six months from 4 June 2025 to 3 December 2025 for failing to properly manage credit risks and to identify and report suspicious trading patterns of clients.

The SFC’s investigation found that shortly after three cash clients had opened their accounts and deposited only $10,000 with MTF in January 2021, MTF granted each of them a trading limit ranging from $4 million to $5 million despite no application was received from the clients.

The trading limits were granted at the request of MTF’s substantial shareholder. No proper due diligence was done on those clients’ financial status and in one case, the trading limits granted to the client was 10 times his declared annual income.

Soon after the trading limits were granted, the three clients utilised the limits to conduct transactions which were not commensurate with the financial situations of two of them. The transactions also demonstrated suspicious features which should arouse reasonable suspicion of potential market misconduct and money laundering.

However, MTF failed to identify such transactions as suspicious, follow up on them or ensure that they were reported to both the Joint Financial Intelligence Unit and the SFC in a timely manner.

The SFC concluded that MTF failed to maintain effective policies and procedures to ensure the proper management of credit risks and an effective ongoing monitoring system to identify, examine and report suspicious trading patterns, in breach of the Code of Conduct as well as other regulatory requirements on risk management and anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism.

The SFC has found that MTF’s failures were attributable to Wong’s failure to discharge her duties as an RO and a member of the senior management of MTF at the material time.

In deciding the disciplinary sanction against Wong, the SFC has taken into account a variety of factors, including the need to send a deterrent message to the market that such failures are not acceptable, and Wong’s co-operation during the SFC’s investigation. Wong has an otherwise clean disciplinary record.