UBS fined with USD 1.5 mln for compliance breaches by Hong Kong regulator

Swiss bank UBS has been fined USD 1.5 million by Hong Kong’s securities regulator for failing to disclose its holdings in some companies covered in its research reports, the watchdog said.

The bank’s failure to disclose its financial interests in the reports published between 2004 and 2018 was attributed to an error in using legacy technology, which tracked the shareholdings of UBS, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) said in a statement.

The fines were also related to four other compliance breaches, including the bank’s failure to record 35 telephone lines between August 2017 and 2019 involving more than 2,000 transactions executed for more than 400 clients, according to Channel News Asia. The bank was also found to not have received proper authorisation from 91 clients who were not classified as professional investors in respect of 913 securities pooled lending transactions.

However, the bank said in a statement that it has self-identified and reported these matters to the Hong Kong regulators ‘as soon as we found the issues’.