Bank regulations to be tightened
By Kao Shih-ching / Taipei Times staff reporter
The Financial Supervisory Commission is to tighten regulations on local banks’ customer relationship managers from Jan. 1 next year following a series of cases of managers stealing money from their clients over the past two years, the commission said yesterday.
That would be the second time the commission has toughened its stance on customer relationship mangers since 2019, as the previous rule changes have not effectively stopped managers from stealing cash from their clients, the commission told a videoconference.
The commission has fined E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行), Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) and Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) for thefts committed by their customer relationship mangers since the stricter regulations took effect in 2019, commission data showed.
The new rules would stipulate that banks should ban customer relationship managers from producing bank statements and offering them directly to clients, as the statements were often used as a tool in theft cases, the commission said.
Banks must instead send bank statements to clients by mail or e-mail, instead of via customer relationship mangers, Banking Bureau Chief Secretary Hou Li-yang (侯立洋) said.
The statements should at least include information on returns on investment programs, account balances, investment targets and traded units, so clients can check whether their customer relationship manager is lying about their investment programs, Hou added.
Some banks would need time to update their information technology and mailing systems to comply with the new rules, which is one of the reasons the new regulations would take effect next year, he said.
Under new rules, banks must inspect their customer relationship managers’ computers to see if they have produced bank statements, he said.
Some banks are already in the habit of examining the computers to prevent fraud, but not all, so the new regulations specifically demand that banks perform such examinations, Hou added.
The commission has issued fines totaling NT$163 million (US$5.83 million at the current exchange rate) on more than 10 banks for theft since 2018, and banks must strengthen the supervision of their customer relationship managers, it said.
