“Dear team, you will have seen that these days a lot of noise and a lot of press about the safety of investmentscaused by a series of bad news from crazy market competitionl”, says the beginning of an internal communication that the CEO of HBSC Uruguay, Geoffrey Fichte, sent to his staff in the last hours. Immediately, a note published by The Observer where details of the fraud and misappropriation complaint against stockbroker Sara Goldring Custody of Securities.
“Personally, it gives me a lot of courage to see the people lose their wealth and suffer the destruction of their dreams, as a result of these mishandling of third parties“, wrote Fichte. In this sense, the executive conveyed to his subordinates that “it is important to reaffirm” your “commitment and responsibility in each communication with clients and prospects, supported by what you are and are worth as experts (…) “.
The CEO of HSBC Uruguay also appealed to his account LinkedIn to reinforce your message. “When the security of investments in the market raises doubts, at HSBC we reaffirm our commitment and responsibility, supported by the international experience of being the only global bank with a presence in Uruguay,” he wrote.
Intervened runner
At the beginning of July, the Central Bank of Uruguay (BCU) concluded that Custodia de Valores Mobiliarios (CVM) incurred in “serious breaches” and “contraventions of legal and regulatory norms.” Through a resolution signed on July 4, the BCU ordered the intervention of the company –and its sister United Brokers SA– as a result of the irregular management of its portfolio. The Montevideo Stock Exchange (BVM) is in charge of the intervention of this stockbroker.
According to the information provided by the CVM to the BCU, the affected accounts went from a total balance of US$110 million at the end of June 2021 to US$18 million at the end of May 2022, which implies a loss of US$92 million. which –as the runner herself warned– could be higher. It is estimated that within the portfolio of victims there are between 300 and 400 people, some of whom denounced that the Goldring broker deceived them and hid information from them, which has led to the preparation of several complaints for fraud and misappropriation.
Although the company framed the losses in that period, the clients did not see anything unusual in their account statements until June of this year, when from one moment to the next the computer system that allowed them to monitor their assets “crashed”. . Just as a result of an email from CVM sent on June 21, many learned that they had lost almost 90% of their savings, when they had never been duly informed of the level of risk to which their accounts were associated.
