On 3 September 2024, the MAS issued a 5-year prohibition order against Mr Chong Yew Mun Alan for market misconduct offences. From 1 December 2015 to 15 January 2016, the individual was found to have been involved in a scheme to create the false appearance of Catalist-listed Koyo International Limited’s shares trading at progressively higher prices in order to attract a buyer to acquire the company via a reverse takeover. In order to achieve this, the individual carried out trades in 15 different brokerage accounts using the account holder’s login credentials without the consent of the account holders, for which the brokerage firm did not give consent for trades to be made without the account holders instruction. For more information, please click here.

On 10 September 2024, the MAS reprimanded Mr Tan Chuan Lam, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and a director of the formerly registered insurance broker, Acesynergy Brokers Pte. Ltd. (ABPL). The MAS cancelled ABPL’s insurance brokers licence on 24 July 2024 due to deficiencies and breaches found relating to compliance and regulatory disclosures, leading to the evaluation that the company lacked sufficient management oversight, accounting, and compliance processed. As the acting CEO, Mr Tan Chuan Lam was responsible for the lack of oversight leading to these breaches and deficiencies, despite the MAS’ repeated engagements with him. For more information, please click here.

On 23 September 2024, the MAS ordered Qoo10 Pte Ltd (Qoo10) to suspend all provision of payment services under the Payment Services Act 2019. When the act came into force in 2019, existing payment service providers could continue to provide payment services while licensing applications were reviewed to minimise disruption to customers, Qoo10 was not licensed by the MAS but could continue providing these services under this exemption. The MAS decided to order the suspension of provision of payment services due to several complaints received between April 2024 and August 2024 concerning delays in processing of payments. The MAS has given opportunities for Qoo10 to remediate this, however while Qoo10 has resolved some of these, there are still cases outstanding, for which the company was unable to provide sufficient assurance that it had the resources and systems to meet its payment obligations to merchants in a timely manner. The MAS does not prohibit the company from operating as an e-commerce platform but has suggested it may need to engage a third-party payment service provider for transactions on the platform. For more information, please click here.

On 24 September 2024, the MAS issued a 5-year prohibition order against Mr Pan Qi for dishonest conduct. It was found that between 4 January 2019 and 24 July 2020, Mr Pan had used his position at Nech Capital Pte Ltd to execute trades across several securities counters between Nech Capital Pte Ltd’s accounts, and those which he controlled that belonged to his relatives in a manner that made profit for his family members at the expense of the company. For more information, please click here.