Standard Chartered banker detained in China

Wu Yidian Eden, a naturalised Singaporean citizen, had been asked over the past two months to co-operate with police enquiries about a StanChart client who allegedly stole a large sum from a Chinese bank and fled the country, according to her fiancé, Jason Tan.

The detention, which UK-based StanChart confirmed, highlights the risks for foreign bankers involved in wealth management in China, where the source of vast personal fortunes is often shrouded in mystery（掩盖在神秘之中）.

StanChart said the bank itself was not under investigation. It declined to comment on the detention because of the investigation. Ms Wu had been working in private banking for StanChart in Shanghai.

Ms Wu and Mr Tan were due to marry later this month in Singapore. When Ms Wu notified the police last week that she would be leaving the country for the wedding, she was asked to come to the station one more time. Mr Tan said she has been held since then without charge.

Bain and Company, the consultants, and China Merchants Bank have previously projected that the number of Chinese with at least Rmb10m ($1.6m) in individual assets would rise to 585,000 last year, nearly twice as many as in 2008.

The vast majority of those assets are held within China and managed by domestic institutions. But many wealthy Chinese are looking to invest more of their money abroad and have been turning to foreign banks.

Managing this money, though potentially lucrative, is also fraught with dangers for foreign banks. Executives of state-owned corporations have low official salaries, raising questions about the path to riches for those who have amassed large fortunes. A study by the China Reform Foundation, a research institute, found in 2010 that Chinese households hide as much as Rmb9.3tn in income, much of it "illegal or quasi-illegal".

Tight capital controls also make it difficult to transfer money outside of China. The central bank published a report last year in which it said that corrupt officials had managed to send about Rmb800bn out of the country since the mid-1990s, often giving the funds to relatives or friends already living abroad.

In Ms Wu's case, the StanChart client was allegedly an executive from an Agricultural Bank of China branch in Jiangyin, a city in Jiangsu province near Shanghai. AgBank declined to comment.

Jiangsu, a hotbed of private entrepreneurs, has one of the country's biggest concentrations of wealthy individuals.

risk management

Risk management is the identification, assessment（评估）, and prioritization （优化）of risks ，followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and/or impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities. Risks can come from uncertainty in financial markets, project failures (at any phase in design, development, production, or sustainment life-cycles), legal liabilities, credit risk, accidents, natural causes and disasters as well as deliberate attack from an adversary, or events of uncertain or unpredictable root-cause. Several risk management standards have been developed including the Project Management Institute, the National Institute of Science and Technology, actuarial societies, and ISO standards. Methods, definitions and goals vary widely according to whether the risk management method is in the context of project management, security, engineering, industrial processes, financial portfolios, actuarial assessments, or public health and safety.
The strategies to manage risk typically include transferring the risk to another party, avoiding the risk, reducing the negative effect or probability of the risk, or even accepting some or all of the potential or actual consequences of a particular risk.