Chee Hian Kwah

Chee Hian advises banks, brokers, asset managers, payment services providers and other financial institutions on a broad range of legal, regulatory and compliance matters, including licensing, business conduct rules, product marketing and offering rules, outsourcing and risk management controls, sanctions compliance, and anti-money laundering compliance. He has specific expertise in helping clients with various Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) licence applications, such as capital markets services licence, financial adviser licence, payment institution licence and digital bank licence.

Chee Hian also assists financial institutions with their documentation requirements, and he has extensive experience with both internal documents such as compliance manuals and external documents such as customer terms of service.

Chee Hian also advises on contentious financial regulatory matters, including advising on internal and regulatory investigations, regulatory enquiries, and enforcement actions relating to breaches of anti-money laundering regulations.

Chee Hian works closely with industry bodies such as Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA) and Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) on financial services reform and developments. He has also spent some time on secondment with an international bank in Singapore, and had assisted the bank with its regulatory requirement to locally incorporate its Singapore retail operations.

Chee Hian's experience includes:

• acted for an international securities brokerage firm in obtaining a capital markets services licence for dealing in capital markets products
• acted for an international investment bank in obtaining a capital markets services licence for fund management
• acted for a regional payments services provider in obtaining a major payment institution licence
• advised an international private bank on the Singapore financial regulatory requirements applicable to its business model, and drafted the customer terms of service for its Singapore office
• advised various banks,  brokerage firms and fintech companies on the Singapore regulatory regime relating to digital payment tokens

Background

Read more about Herbert Smith Freehills Prolegis here.

Chee Hian graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) from the National University of Singapore, where he was awarded the Lo Hwei Yen Memorial Scholarship and a variety of book prizes. He is admitted to practice law in Singapore.