Hong Kong banks discover HK$6.86 million in unauthorised share trading via online banking
Activity was conducted on at least eight HSBC and Bank of China (Hong Kong) e-banking accounts
The Monetary Authority has sent out an alert after the discovery of HK$6.86 million in unauthorised share trading on least eight HSBC and Bank of China (Hong Kong) e-banking accounts over the past two weeks.
It is understood that the perpetrators had acquired access to some of the e-banking accounts by guessing PINs. But the money could not be transferred out to unregistered accounts because two-factor authentication was required.
The authority said it was difficult to figure out whether the trades were profitable, and what the losses were in these cases, if any.
The suspicious trades were detected by one of the banks because trades made by different e-banking accounts were conducted from a single IP address.
HSBC and Bank of China (Hong Kong) have called the police, and customers whose accounts were involved have been contacted.
