Monetary Authority to process 70pc of 20,999 complaints by next March
A total of 20,999 complaints have been received so far about the way banks sold credit-linked derivatives, including minibonds, issued or guaranteed by Lehman Brothers, Monetary Authority deputy chief executive Choi Yiu-kwan said yesterday.
Testifying for the first time before members of the Legislative Council subcommittee investigating the Lehman debacle, Mr Choi said the authority was aiming to process at least 70 per cent of the complaints by March next year.
'Of course, 21,000 cases are a lot,' Mr Choi said. 'At this point, it's difficult for us to tell ... how many can be substantiated and how many would involve bank staff not giving detailed explanations in the selling process. I think at this stage, we cannot really say that this is a common problem.'
But the failure of bank staff to adequately explain the investment product was the top allegation among the complaints, he said.
Questioned by Democratic Party lawmaker Emily Lau Wai-hing, Mr Choi recalled that about 3,000 of the complaints involved people aged 65 and over.
A report submitted to the financial secretary in January by the authority identified the practice of selling Lehman minibonds to people who were over 65, illiterate or had only primary school education as the most common type of suspected mis-selling. These and other findings were blacked out in the report but leaked to the media last month.
Lehman collapsed in mid-September amid the credit crunch.
