As announced on 20 Sep 2018, SFC banned Mr Ngo Wing Chun, a former relationship manager of HSBC, from re-entering the industry for 12 months for unauthorized transfer of customer data.
Ngo sent an email containing personal data of approximately 995 customers from his HSBC email account to his two personal email accounts on 19 Nov 2015, his last working day at HSBC.
The customer data leakage was immediately detected by HSBC's email monitoring system before Ngo joined another bank in a similar capacity the following day. Ngo agreed to delete the email upon HSBC's request from his personal email accounts. There is no evidence that the customer data had been disclosed to any third parties.
Ngo's conduct was in breach of HSBC's internal policies, the PDPO and SFC's Code of Conduct.
Implementation of email monitoring system for detecting deliberate leakage of customer data and inside information has deserved a higher priority.
