{"id":19349,"date":"2012-03-15T20:42:33","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T12:42:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinahearsay.com\/?p=12392"},"modified":"2012-03-15T20:42:33","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T12:42:33","slug":"standard-chartered-banker-arrested-by-chinese-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2012\/03\/15\/standard-chartered-banker-arrested-by-chinese-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Standard Chartered Banker Arrested by Chinese Police?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>OK foreign bankers, is it time to panic? Probably not, although you might want to be careful dealing with individual clients and keep good records.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg has the basics here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Standard Chartered Plc (STAN), the U.K. bank whose earnings from China doubled last year, said its private-bank relationship manager Wu Yidian Eden has been detained by police in the Asian nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are unable to comment on the reason for her detention — this is a matter for the police,\u201d Singapore-based spokeswoman Melissa Cheah said in an e-mailed response to queries today. \u201cWe can confirm that Standard Chartered is not being investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police from the city of Wuxi notified Shanghai-based Wu\u2019s family of her detention on March 6, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Chinese authorities are investigating a client of Wu, a naturalized Singapore citizen, who allegedly fled with as much as $50 million from Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., according to the report.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sure that some bankers will be outraged or scared by this report, but I don’t really see anything surprising here. Ms. Wu’s job was to help rich Standard Chartered customers manage their money. One of her clients fled the country with a gazillion dollars, and the government is investigating the embezzlement.<\/p>\n

Look, the government is not questioning the embezzler’s tailor, or barber, or dentist. They are talking to the one service provider that was in the best position to assist in moving that money around, including across borders. Am I missing something here? Of course they would want to talk to her, perhaps several times.<\/p>\n

Now, saying all that, obviously if she is detained without charge, treated improperly, etc., then that’s another thing entirely. But either way, she’s certainly a person of interest in this matter, yeah?<\/p>\n

Foreign banks better get used to this sort of thing. You might not be aware of this, but there’s a lot of money floating around China these days:<\/p>\n

Standard Chartered, HSBC Holdings Plc and Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia Ltd. (23) are among foreign lenders expanding in China to tap its growing wealth. Chinese millionaires will hold $8.76 trillion of assets by 2015 as their number is set to more than double, according to a study by Julius Baer Group and CLSA Asia Pacific Markets in September.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What does this incident mean to the bankers out there, including all these foreign banks that have opened up retail operations in the past couple of years specifically targeting China’s nouveau riche<\/em>? It means that you better be careful what sort of advice you give these clients, and you better keep an eye on employees like Ms. Wu — and I’m not suggesting she did anything wrong. These guys should have some special training and be subject to a bit more scrutiny than other employees.<\/p>\n

Here’s an idea for the foreign banks: transfer some of your grizzled veterans that have done time in Russia (not in jail; I meant at the bank)\u00a0to branches here in China to train staff that will be providing services to your nouveau riche<\/em> clients. Rest assured that these Russia vets know the score and can provide valuable assistance.<\/p>\n

At the same time, you might want to keep your eyes on those guys too, though. Just in case.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a9 Stan for China Hearsay<\/a>, 2012. |\nPermalink<\/a> |\nNo comment<\/a> |\nAdd to\ndel.icio.us<\/a>\n\nPost tags: banking<\/a>, criminal law<\/a>, foreign banks<\/a>\n<\/small><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foreign banks with cross-border financial expertise giving advice to Chinese clients with access to State assets. What could go wrong?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[205,1170,194],"tags":[3627,7905,3628],"class_list":["post-19349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china-business-economy","category-criminal-law","category-news-chinese-law","tag-banking","tag-criminal-law","tag-foreign-banks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}