A senior executive of the MTR Corporation will take over as Octopus chief executive from Prudence Chan Bik-wah, who resigned yesterday amid a credibility crisis over the selling of cardholders' personal data.
Chan, who will stay on with the company for six months to assist four investigations into its privacy policies, said the issue could have been better handled but insisted that no laws were broken.
David Tang Chi-fai, the MTR's head of property projects, will serve as acting chief executive. A new chief executive unrelated to any of the five shareholders needs recruiting soon.
Chan's resignation, announced after a board meeting of Octopus Holdings, followed an outcry over findings that Octopus made HK$44 million out of sharing cardholders' data with its business partners.
'I have given tremendous thought to the events over the past few weeks and although it is clear that, while Octopus under my watch has adhered to all laws and regulations, I have decided to tender my resignation,' Chan said.
'I believe the current issue could have been better handled and for that, I sincerely apologise to our customers and the community.'
Lincoln Leong Kwok-kuen, the MTR financial director and non-executive chairman of Octopus Holdings, said after the meeting that directors had been aware that money was made from selling the data but they did not know how much. 'It was a very small amount in comparison to the overall revenue.'
