A former mutual fund rep who repeatedly logged into a client’s bank account and transferred money out is being sanctioned by a hearing panel of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO).
Following a hearing on sanctions, Haimeng Wang — a former rep with TD Investment Services Inc. in Surrey, B.C. — was ordered to disgorge $151,895.51, fined $201,895.51 and ordered to pay $15,000 in costs. She was also permanently banned from the industry.
The sanctions followed admissions that Wang breached securities rules by accessing a client’s bank account and misappropriating money from it, and failing to cooperate with the regulator’s investigation.
According to an agreed statement of facts, between February 2021 and December 2022, Wang transferred almost $152,000 from the bank account of a client to her own account, her partner’s account, and to a couple of others.
The client, a 71-year old retiree, was a relative of Wang’s partner, and a person that she knew before becoming a fund rep. Still, the statement noted that the transfers weren’t authorized by the client, and weren’t repaid by Wang — instead, the bank paid compensation to the client.
It also compensated the same client for at least $50,000 in transfers from their account that Wang made between June 2020 and February 2021, when she was an employee of the bank, but before she became a fund rep.
The panel’s decision also noted that, while Wang provided CIRO staff with certain documents — including banking and credit card records, receipts and screenshots of conversations with the client — she failed to fully cooperate with the self-regulatory organization’s investigation into her conduct.