Shengli Securities was fined HK$1.7 million for violating regulations, and the license of the person in charge was temporarily revoked 

The Zhitong Finance App learned that the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission condemned Shengli Securities and fined HK$1.7 million because the company violated regulatory requirements when handling a customer account. The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission also temporarily suspended the license of Zhao Ziliang (male), the person responsible for Shengli Securities and the head of core functions, for a period of three months from July 22, 2026 to October 21, 2026.

The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission uncovered irregularities during the investigation of a suspected “Singing High Bulk” scheme. The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission discovered that a client opened an account with Shengli Securities on October 29, 2019 and expressed interest in selling his securities held at another brokerage firm through Shengli Securities. Shortly after opening the account, the client issued stock sale instructions to Shengli Securities twice and provided statements claiming to have been issued by other brokerage firms as proof that he holds such shares.

Although there were a number of warning signs at the time (including that the value of the shares claimed by the customer was not commensurate with the financial situation declared in the account opening documents), which should have prompted Shengli Securities to scrutinize the information provided by the customer more closely, but Shengli Securities did not make sufficient inquiries with the customer before implementing the customer's instructions, nor did they obtain a satisfactory explanation about the warning signs.

Furthermore, according to subsequent information, the customer may have provided false documents to Shengli Securities to facilitate one of the transactions, but Shengli Securities did not report the customer's fraudulent or deceptive conduct to the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission.

The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission believes that the way Shengli Securities handled this customer account failed to meet the standards required by the Code of Conduct, the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Ordinance, and the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Guidelines (applicable to licensed corporations).

The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission believes that the absence of Shengli Securities is due to Zhao's failure to perform his duties as a responsible person and senior management member of the company.

The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission has taken into account all relevant circumstances of this case when deciding on the above sanctions, including:

This is an individual incident;

There is no evidence that there are systemic flaws in Shengli Securities's internal control system;

Shengli Securities has since improved its internal policies and procedures and implemented mandatory employee training to prevent similar incidents from happening again;

Shengli Securities and Zhao cooperated with the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission to resolve related matters;

Zhao has no record of being subject to disciplinary action by the Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission in the past.