Last week SFC suspended Ms Ng Suet Hing for one month for unlicensed activities. She is licensed to carry on Type 3 regulated activity, accredited to Hantec International Ltd.
SFC found that Ng assisted a HK resident to open an account at Cosmos Hantec Investment (NZ) Ltd, a New Zealand company not licensed by SFC, to trade leveraged foreign exchange contracts. Cosmos Hantec (NZ) is a related company of Hantec International Ltd. It carries on a business in financial services including leveraged foreign exchange trading which is currently not regulated in New Zealand. Ng subsequently attempted to notify Cosmos Hantec (NZ) that she was the client's account executive for the purpose of receiving commissions.
Some market practitioners have a false hope that if client transactions arising a regulated activity are booked in an overseas entity, there is no licensing requirement. They don't realize that if the clients are HK residents and the account opening process takes place in HK, SFC has to offer them investor protection.
In this case, even though Cosmos Hantec (NZ) is a related company of Hantec International Ltd, SFC fails to exercise further investigation power against this overseas company. As a result, HK investors who have opened an account with Cosmos Hantec (NZ) are now requested to contact SFC.
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