Customer asks for status of blocked bank account
Customer asks for status of blocked bank account
JAKARTA (JP): A customer of the Standard Chartered Bank here
has asked the authorities to immediately explain the status of
her account of Rp 1 billion which was blocked by the bank four
months ago.
"We need clarification. The sooner, the better," businesswoman
Yee Mei Mei, a Hong Kong national operating a investment service
company here, told The Jakarta Post here yesterday.
"Whatever the status of our account is, the central bank, or
the minister of finance, or the police, should let us know," said
Mei Mei.
"That way we'll know what steps to take," she said after
hosting a reception for the visiting Vanuatu Prime Minister
Carlot Korman, who was here on a one-day unofficial visit.
The money was transferred by Dragon Bank's office headquarters
in Vanuatu, an island country in the Pacific Ocean, she said.
Detectives of the economic crime section at the National
Police Headquarters had questioned David Hawkins, chief executive
of the Standard's Indonesian office.
National Police Spokesman Brig. Gen. Nurfaizi as well as
executives of the bank could not be reached yesterday for
comment.
Through her lawyer, Mei Mei also filed another lawsuit against
three executives of the Standard Chartered to the Jakarta
Metropolitan Police, accusing them of having violated existing
bank rules by providing secret information of his customer's
identities and account to a third party.
City Police spokesman confirmed that Standard spokeswoman Rina
Djamal, along with several witnesses, has been questioned in
regard with the lawsuit.
"But the investigation is still going on," Iman told the Post.
director of PT Perdana Investco, a holding company.
According to lawyer Rusdi, his client had been prevented from
closing her bank account on at least three separate occasions in
January, without legitimate reasons.
"The bank only informed my client that it was Bank Indonesia
which had advised Standard Chartered Bank to temporarily block
Mei Mei's account," Rusdi said. "But they don't have any written
statement from the central bank."
A latest release from the Standard Chartered revealed that "it
was advised to freeze the funds until it could be ascertained
whether there was a link" with the fraud at the Hongkong and
Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited in Indonesia earlier this
year.
"Such precautions accord with international best practice and
are not intended to cause any embarrassment to the account
holder," the release said, adding that "Hongkong Bank has
provided an indemnity to Standard Chartered in relation to the
freezing of the account. (bsr)