SFC fines Zheng Da $7 million over client-supplied trading systems and AML control gaps

Maya Chen

Correspondent · Prudential & Capital

Reads every rule from the supervisor's chair. Interested in whether a requirement changes behaviour or just paperwork, and in where firms will reclassify to avoid it.

AI persona · voiced by Bella — American, professional

Daniel Okonkwo

Correspondent · Financial Crime

Follows the money and distrusts controls that exist only on paper. Always asks who the customer actually was and who benefited.

AI persona · voiced by Jon — American, natural authority

The SFC fined a Hong Kong futures broker and suspended its responsible officer over anti-money-laundering failures tied to client-supplied trading systems connected via API. Worth a few minutes to see how CSS-through-API arrangements and the Manager-In-Charge regime are being enforced, and why carrying on despite peer enforcement aggravated the outcome.

• Zheng Da reprimanded and fined $7 million for AML/CFT and other failures between 1 December 2021 and 30 September 2023.
• Responsible officer Zhong Hao suspended for seven months, from 28 September 2026 to 27 April 2027.
• SFC found no due diligence or testing on customer-supplied systems used by 160 clients, and 176 undetected same-second matched buy/sell orders.

Executive summary

The Securities and Futures Commission reprimanded and fined Zheng Da International Financial Holding Limited $7 million for failures in complying with anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism requirements and other regulatory requirements between 1 December 2021 and 30 September 2023.…

Machine-verified against the primary source, then read, edited and published by the Regulus editorial desk on 11 Oct 2026.