Integrity Focus

A former employee of a bank, charged by the ICAC, today (January 23) admitted at the Kowloon City Magistrates’ Courts that she had accepted a bribe for referring a client to the proprietor of a lending referral agency without permission and arranged clients to apply for mortgage loans with another bank to defraud the latter of referral fees.

Amy Chow Bik-sum, 49, former assistant customer service manager of OCBC Bank (Hong Kong) Limited (formerly known as OCBC Wing Hang Bank Limited) (OCBC), today pleaded guilty to 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; and one count of fraud, contrary to section 16A of the Theft Ordinance.

Acting Principal Magistrate Mr Ko Wai-hung adjourned the case to February 10 for sentence, pending Chow’s background report. Chow was remanded in the custody of the Correctional Services Department.

Co-defendants Yip Man-yee, 46, proprietor of The Capital Property (TCP); and Mak Miu-ling, 56, former deputy manager of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Asia) Limited (ICBC (Asia)), today pleaded not guilty to the charges. The case was scheduled for March 7 for a pre-trial review.

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. The respective duties of Chow and Mak included handling of residential mortgage applications. Both banks would release agency referral fees to their appointed mortgage intermediaries for successful residential mortgage applications, but the relevant staff handling those applications, including Chow and Mak, were not entitled to any commissions or agency referral fees.

Cybernetics Property Mortgage Limited (CPM) was an appointed mortgage intermediary of ICBC (Asia). For each successful mortgage application jointly procured with an agent, CPM would release 95 per cent of the agency referral fee released by ICBC (Asia) as a broker fee to the agent. As an agent of CPM in mortgage referral business, TCP was entitled to receive a broker fee from CPM for each successful mortgage application referred to ICBC (Asia).

Chow admitted that between August 2019 and August 2021, she had referred two OCBC clients to then ICBC (Asia) employee, Mak, and the proprietor of TCP, Yip, for arranging mortgage loan applications with ICBC (Asia) without asking for OCBC’s permission.

Chow further admitted that she had falsely represented to ICBC (Asia) that one of the two clients was referred by CPM to deceive ICBC (Asia) into paying a mortgage loan referral fee of $18,000 to CPM. She had also accepted a bribe of over $16,000 from Yip for referring the second client to TCP.

TCP had received two broker fees of about $17,000 and about $32,000 respectively from CPM for referring the two clients, the court heard.

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

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

The prosecution was today represented by ICAC officer Gary Chan.