Integrity Focus

The ICAC had charged two former employees of two banks and a mortgage loan referral agent in the past two days (October 15 and 16) for alleged bribery and fraud in relation to referral of loan applications of clients without the banks’ permission and swindling referral fees by making false representations to the banks. The bribe money and agent referral fees involved totally over $34,000.

Amy Chow Bik-sum, 48, former assistant customer service manager of OCBC Bank (Hong Kong) Limited (formerly known as OCBC Wing Hang Bank Limited) (OCBC); Yip Man-yee, 46, sole proprietor of The Capital Property (TCP); and Mak Miu-ling, 55, former deputy manager of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Asia) Limited (ICBC (Asia)), jointly face one count of fraud, contrary to section 16A of the Theft Ordinance. Chow and Yip further face one count of conspiracy for an agent to accept an advantage, contrary to section 9(1)(a) of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance and section 159A of the Crimes Ordinance.

The trio were released on ICAC bail, pending their appearance at the Kowloon City Magistrates’ Courts tomorrow (October 18) for plea.

OCBC and ICBC (Asia) would release agency referral fees to the banks’ appointed mortgage intermediaries for successful residential mortgage applications, but the banks would not release commissions or agency referral fees to their staff who handled such applications.

Cybernetics Property Mortgage Limited (CPM) was an appointed mortgage intermediary of ICBC (Asia). CPM would release 95% of the agency referral fee received from ICBC (Asia) as a broker fee to their agents for each successful mortgage application procured.

At the material time, Chow was an assistant customer service manager of OCBC posted to its Tsim Sha Tsui branch, while Mak was a deputy manager of ICBC (Asia) posted to its Ho Man Tin branch. Among their duties, both Chow and Mak were responsible for handling residential mortgage applications. Yip was the sole proprietor of TCP, a lending referral agency, which was CPM’s agent in mortgage referral business and was entitled to receive a broker fee from CPM for each successful mortgage application referred to a bank.

Between August 2019 and March 2021, Chow allegedly referred two OCBC clients to Mak and Yip respectively for arranging the clients to apply to ICBC (Asia) for mortgage loans.

It is alleged that between September 2019 and March 2020, the trio falsely represented to ICBC (Asia) that the mortgage loan application of the aforesaid first client was referred by CPM, and deceived ICBC (Asia) into paying a mortgage loan referral fee of $18,000 to CPM.

It is also alleged that between January and August 2021, Chow accepted a bribe of over $16,000 from Yip for referring the aforesaid second client’s mortgage loan application to TCP.

The ICAC investigation arose from a corruption complaint. Enquiries revealed that Chow, without obtaining a permission from OCBC, had allegedly referred the two clients to Mak and Yip respectively for arranging the clients to file mortgage loan applications with ICBC (Asia). Due to the aforesaid scam, TCP received two broker fees of about $17,000 and about $32,000 respectively from CPM. The ICAC probe also revealed that the aforesaid first client had never entrusted CPM and TCP to file his mortgage loan application with ICBC (Asia). Since both ICBC (Asia) and CPM had no knowledge of the relevant actual situation, they had eventually released the agent referral fee and broker fee to CPM and TCP separately.

OCBC did not allow its employees to refer mortgage loan applications of the bank’s clients to other individuals or institutions, and the bank also prohibited its employees from soliciting or accepting advantages from others in relation to OCBC’s business.

OCBC, ICAC (Asia) and CPM have rendered full assistance to the ICAC during its investigation into the case.