Hong Kong’s Accounting and Financial Reporting Council (AFRC) has imposed fines on multiple audit practices and individual practitioners for non-compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing guidelines.
Public reprimands have been handed to Prism Hong Kong (Prism); practitioner Wong Ka Chun (Wong); and Danny Ho & Company (DH&C), along with practitioner Ho Oi Suen, Danny (Ho).
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Financial penalties totalling HK$150,000 ($19,172) were imposed on Prism. Wong, DH&C and Ho were each fined HK$70,000.
The enforcement actions stem from AFRC monitoring inspections conducted between 2023 and 2025 to assess adherence to the AML Guidelines.
In its 2023 review of Prism, a public interest entity auditor, the regulator found multiple breaches of the guidelines in relation to the company’s acceptance of a number of new assignments for specified services.
This included, among others, failure to carry out mandatory client risk assessments to identify higher money laundering or terrorist financing risks.
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By GlobalDataAccording to the AFRC, Prism acknowledged the violations, cooperated with the investigation and agreed to the sanctions.
Subsequent inspections in 2025 of two smaller firms, Wong and DH&C, uncovered what the AFRC described as “serious deficiencies of a similar nature”.
The council reported that both practices lacked basic internal policies, procedures and controls required to meet AML Guidelines.
It also found that they had not carried out adequate customer due diligence and had failed to perform proper checks of client names against the official Sanctions List.
The council said that these lapses indicated “a total lack of awareness and understanding of the AML Guidelines by the sole practitioners concerned”.
AFRC CEO Janey Lai stated: “Strict adherence and compliance with the AML Guidelines by practitioners is paramount in safeguarding the integrity of Hong Kong’s financial system.
“The AFRC remains committed to raising the level of AML compliance by strengthening its regulatory oversight through ongoing inspections and effective enforcement actions.”
Recently, the AFRC sanctioned Forvis Mazars (Mazars) and Grant Thornton Hong Kong for violating requirements on the archiving of audit files.
