Woman, 92, sues bank for freezing her $8.9 million

Woman, 92, sues bank for freezing her $8.9 million

Tan May Ping Fri, Nov 21, 2008 The New Paper

ALL she wants is to get the $8.86million in her bank accounts.

But OCBC Bank would not let 92-year-old Hwang Cheng Tsu Hsu withdraw her money, and has frozen her accounts.

The bank feels that she might not have the mental capacity to make such decisions, and that it is duty-bound to take reasonable care to ensure it acts on valid instructions before releasing the money.

Because of the stalemate, the retired Chinese teacher filed a civil suit against the bank demanding her money back with interest.

In May, Madam Hwang went to the bank with her adopted daughter, Madam Hsu Ann Mei, 43, to open a joint account.

Madam Hsu, who is acting on behalf of her mother, told The New Paper that they both agreed that she could help facilitate transactions given Madam Hwang's advanced age.

They were made to sign some forms at the bank that day, she said.

When they didn't hear from the bank after a few days, Madam Hsu called her mother's relationship manager, and was told that their request was rejected.

She then asked if they could transfer all of Madam Hwang's fixed deposits, when they matured, into the latter's current account, but that request was also turned down.

The bulk of Madam Hwang's money is held in fixed deposits.

A few days after their request to open the joint account, the relationship manager and another officer went to Madam Hwang's house where she lives with a maid.

Many questions

They were there for 10 minutes, and asked Madam Hwang many questions, said Madam Hsu.

'As my mother didn't know them, she just kept saying 'I don't know' to their questions,' she added.

Mother and daughter then decided to close all the accounts amounting to $8.86million with the view of depositing the money at a different bank.

But when they went to close the accounts, Madam Hsu said she was separated from her mother, who was then interviewed by four bank officers, including the head of private banking.

After less than 10 minutes, Madam Hsu went in, repeated the instructions to close the accounts, and then left with her mother.

Madam Hsu and her lawyer subsequently wrote to the bank several times over the next three months asking for the closure of the accounts but to no avail.

Madam Hsu then wrote to the chairmen of both the bank and the Monetary Authority of Singapore seeking advice.

In mid-August, the bank responded, saying it wasn't able to release the money as it had doubts about Madam Hwang's mental capacity.

There was another shock in store when Madam Hwang and her daughter tried to withdraw money from her OCBC account in late August - all her accounts had been frozen.

Madam Hwang filed the suit in the High Court in August.

She is represented by Mr Andrew Ee from Andrew Ee & Co.

In its defence, the bank claimed that Madam Hwang does not have the mental capacity to make such important financial decisions independently.

It said that it was Madam Hsu who asked to open the joint account and to transfer the fixed deposit amounts into the account.

Further, when the two bank officers went to Madam Hwang's house, they found her disoriented, and unable to remember things.

The bank, which is represented by Mr Adrian Wong and Mr Jansen Chow of Rajah & Tann, insists it is being cautious.

Mr Wong told The New Paper: 'In the case of a bank learning that a customer may be mentally incapable, it is the law that all operations on the account must be stopped pending the establishment of an appropriate arrangement to deal with the situation.

'This is only logical as any 'instructions' from a mentally incapable customer surely can't be valid.'

At a hearing in chambers yesterday, the court ordered for Madam Hwang to undergo a psychiatric re-examination.

Mental status

She had been found in March to be suffering from mild dementia, which affects her short-term memory. But the evaluation found her general mental faculties intact, and that she was able to make decisions in her everyday life.

The court has given both parties seven days to agree on a medical expert, failing which the court will appoint one.

Madam Hsu was legally adopted when she was a year-old. Her adoptive father, who was a senior banker, died in 1987.

She said her mother had accumulated the money from a $3 million enbloc sale of a condominium apartment, and from encashing shares which she held.

'Up to this day, I can't understand how it ended up like that. It started out as something very simple,' said Madam Hsu, who quit her job as a tour guide to deal with this matter.

This story was first published in The New Paper on 20 November 2008.