Former OCBC relationship manager admits to insurance policy scam
A relationship manager with the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) induced his clients to make lump sum payments of their insurance policy premiums and pocketed more than $400,000 of the money through his mother’s bank account.
Chng Kunda, a 32-year-old Singaporean, lied to eight clients that they would get cash rebates if they made early payments for their Great Eastern (GE) insurance policies, when no such rebate was available.
Chng, who was fired from OCBC in April 2014, pleaded guilty to 13 counts of cheating, forgery and money-laundering on Monday (4 December). His remaining 27 counts of similar charges will be taken into consideration for his sentencing on Friday.
Chng committed the offences between August 2011 and April 2014. After being informed about the cash rebates, his clients would either pay the monies through fund transfers or cash withdrawals, both of which required them to fill in forms with OCBC.
When clients filled in forms, which came in sets, Chng would give them portions of the forms that made it seem as if GE was the payee. Chng himself kept a carbon copy with which he would fill in his mother’s bank account details so that funds from his clients would be transferred into that account. He lied to his mother that the money was his profits from investments and that it was mistakenly transferred to her account.
Chng would then provide the form, along with his client’s identity card and cash deposit slip to an OCBC branch to be processed. The bank, believing that the client had made the request, would then transfer the funds to Chng’s mother.
The offences continued until two clients complained to OCBC that they received reminder letters from GE about their outstanding policy premium amounts on 27 August 2013 despite having already paid them to Chng.
The bank conducted an internal inquiry and Chng admitted that he kept the lump sum payments by the two clients in his DBS account. However, instead of confessing to his offences, he volunteered to provide a set of bank statements to prove that he did not misappropriate the money. He then forged his own bank statements to show that he still kept the money, even though he had already spent the money on personal expenses.
Chng managed to deceive $414,000 from his clients, of which only $30,000 was recovered. He spent $274,000 on personal expenses and made $110,000 in premium payments to GE on behalf of his clients.
OCBC has since paid GE on behalf of the affected clients to reinstate their insurance policies which had lapsed due to outstanding payments. The bank has also refunded the clients premium payments taken by Chng which were not yet due.
According to the prosecution, the bank suffered a total exposure of $276,814, for which no restitution has been made. Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Chong Yonghui sought a 32-month jail sentence for Chng, saying that the offences were premeditated and committed over a period of time.
Chng’s lawyer Tan Jun Yin asked for a jail sentence of not more than 24 months. She said that Chng, who joined OCBC in 2009, got into the habit of bringing clients out for night entertainment after he got promoted to relationship manager in 2013. However, Chng fell into debt as he was eventually unable to afford the bills.
“What started out as hosting and hospitality became an addiction to him,” said Tan.
For forgery, Chng can be jailed up to four years and/or fined on each count, while for cheating, he can be jailed up to ten years and/or fined.
