TWO former senior employees of UOB Kay Hian Private Limited (UOBKH) were charged on Wednesday for allegedly lying to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in relation to reports on a then Catalist aspirant. Lan Kang Ming, 38, and Wee Toon Lee, 34, each face three charges of providing MAS with false information in October 2018 in relation to due diligence reports on an unidentified company applying to list on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange. MAS said in a media statement on Wednesday that it was performing an onsite inspection of UOBKH between June and August 2018, to assess the latter's controls, policies and procedures in relation to its role as an issue manager for Initial Public Offering (IPOs). During the examination, Lan and Wee were said to have provided different versions of a due diligence report relating to background checks on a company applying to be listed on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange. UOBKH had acted as the issue manager
Comments
09 July 2015
Chinese stock traders want Beijing to create a super-regulator to take over the investor relations and communication duties of existing regulators, which they say have co-ordinated poorly in their handling of the country’s stock market crash.
Traders say a lack of co-ordination among the regulators had heightened investor uncertainty and contributed to the crash’s severity.
In June, when there was huge seasonal demand for cash ahead of the end of the first half of the year, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) was cracking down on margin trading and using large numbers of initial public offerings (IPOs) to cool the red-hot stock trading.
Simultaneously, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) stopped offering short-term funds via its open market operations and did not extend some expiring loans to banks.
These apparently uncoordinated tightening sparked worries that contributed to the stock market crash. Chinese stocks have fallen more than 30 per cent since a peak on June 12.
“Only a super coordinator senior to the ‘one bank, three commissions’ can partially help avoid a repetition of the blunders,” said a trader at a Chinese commercial bank, referring to how China has one central bank and three market-regulating commissions.
Having one authority in charge of regulation “has been discussed for many years, but the state appears to be lacking the will to implement the plan,” he said.
China first discussed a super “state financial stability commission” during the global financial crisis but traders say the idea has gone nowhere, partly due to competition for turf among the PBOC, and the securities, banking and insurance commissions.
The recent margin trading clamp down had a particularly big impact, with investors who had borrowed to trade stocks panicking and selling them aggressively.
Only a super coordinator senior to the ‘one bank, three commissions’ can partially help avoid a repetition of the blunders
“Liquidation of margin traders, especially those borrowed via the over-the-counter channel, was the main source behind the market slump,” said Xiao Shijun, analyst at Guodu Securities in Beijing. “Excessive IPOs added to investor woes.”
A senior Chinese banker said he had heard complaints from lower-level CSRC officials that their leaders thought they could control the market easily and that their agency’s public statements were actually creating chaos.
Many retail investors echoed this view, with some calling for an investigation into the CSRC and for the sacking of some officials there.
“All this activity has supported a view that policymakers are in a state of panic,” said Mark Williams of Capital Economics.
“In China major decisions are made at the highest level of the Party and all parts of the system are expected to fall into line. The result is that new initiatives come from all directions, including large and state-owned firms.”
Traders say the stock market crisis is similar to the “cash crunch” of 2013 when the central bank surprised the market by tightening liquidity at a time of huge cash calls, causing overnight money market rates to jump to as high as 30 per cent, roiling Chinese and global markets.
The roots of both crises are the same: a mixture of bureaucracies used to making decisions behind closed doors and unprepared for how quickly markets can crash.