Wednesday, 11 February 2009

UOB Kay Hian fined by SGX

Local brokerage UOB Kay Hian (UOBKH) has been fined $115,000 by the Singapore Exchange (SGX) for breaching directives.

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Guanyu said...

UOB Kay Hian fined by SGX

Kelvin Chow, TODAY
11 February 2009

Local brokerage UOB Kay Hian (UOBKH) has been fined $115,000 by the Singapore Exchange (SGX) for breaching directives.

The broker was fined on Friday because it had broken the rules while administering the SGX Extended Settlement Contracts (ES Contract) examinations for its trading representatives, SGX said in a statement yesterday.

The ES Contract, which is scheduled to be launched next Friday, will be the first marginable futures contract listed on SGX’s securities trading platform.

After two weeks of investigation, the discipline committee revealed that UOBKH had failed to take adequate measures to safeguard the integrity of the exams, resulting in the leakage of its questions to trading representatives.

Some 43 trading representatives were found in possession of the leaked examination papers.

Due to the breach, said SGX, the brokerage has been ordered to re-administer the exams that were held on Oct 2, 7, 10 and 21 last year.

The second time round, SGX will also direct the manner and mode of the administering and invigilation of the examinations.

“Member firms must make sure that their staffs understand the new products in order to be able to advise their customers,” said Ms. Yeo Lian Sim, senior executive vice-president and head of SGX’s Risk Management and Regulation.

“The examination is a means to ensure that the TRs (trade representatives) are familiar with ES Contracts. This is a serious matter,” she added.

The bourse operator initially slapped UOBKH with a fine of $150,000 but it was reduced to $115,000 by the SGX Appeals Committee after the brokerage appealed.

In its mitigation, UOBKH claimed that the examinations were “a large logistical challenge” and were carried out “under tight time constraints”.