Insurance intermediaries take note: six in Hong Kong banned or suspended over bank draft declarations

Six licensed insurance intermediaries in Hong Kong have been barred from acting as intermediaries, or had their licences temporarily suspended, for between 6 and 13 months after buying bank drafts for clients and helping them make false declarations.

The Insurance Authority (IA) announced disciplinary action against the six on 14 October 2026. According to Insurance Business Asia on 15 October, each was either banned from being an insurance intermediary or had their licence temporarily suspended, for periods of 6 to 13 months.

The intermediary bought the draft; the declaration said the client did

The report says the intermediaries bought bank drafts on behalf of clients to pay premiums, with the drafts worth about HK$7.3 million in total. The clients then falsely declared that they had bought the drafts themselves, and the intermediaries helped make those false declarations.

According to the report, the IA said the conduct breached the appointed insurers' internal controls and also breached anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) controls. The regulatory basis cited in the report includes the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance and the IA's Guideline on Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (GL3).

The report does not state each intermediary's individual sanction or period, nor does it name their appointed insurers. In line with our editorial policy, this article does not name the individuals involved.

The regulator's message: compliance remains key

According to the report, Maria Tsui, the IA's head of enforcement, said that strict compliance by licensed insurance intermediaries remains the key, and that money laundering and terrorist financing offences carry heavy penalties. These remarks come from the report's English quotations; the Chinese version is our paraphrase.

Please note that the facts here currently rest on a single media source, and Focus-50 has not yet obtained the IA's original announcement; the HK$7.3 million figure is the approximate amount given in the report. The IA's specific requirements on declarations of the source of premiums, third-party payments and purchasing drafts on a client's behalf should be taken from the guideline itself and the appointed insurer's procedures. We could not verify the relevant provisions and so do not paraphrase them.

Analysis: what it means for recruiting teams

The following is our own analysis and contains no new facts.

What was sanctioned in this case was not a sales pitch but the truthfulness of a declaration at the payment stage. The sanctions show that handling a client's payment, once linked to a false declaration, engages both the insurer's internal controls and AML/CFT controls.

In onboarding, recruiting teams could consider making payment collection and the source of premiums a lesson of its own, covering:

• Every field on a payment declaration must be completed truthfully, including who bought the draft; never go along with anything inconsistent with the facts for a client's convenience.
• New recruits should know their appointed insurer's payment procedures and internal control requirements, and should consult the company's compliance department first when a client asks them to handle a payment.
• Introduce the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance and the IA's guideline (GL3), and ask recruits to rely on the original texts and company training materials rather than word-of-mouth practice.
• Use this case for discussion: the sanctions run for 6 to 13 months, which shows recruits the real cost to a licence.

For anyone leading a team, the point worth remembering is this: a client's convenience must not be paid for with an intermediary's licence.

Compiled by the F50 Editorial Team from public sources, for general reference only and not professional advice. Details are correct as of the publication date and may change.