Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

"Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

thebureau.news

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 417 posts

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#181

Post by cbsmith »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #173
SunlightEdge wrote: post #100

To maybe offer a different perspective: I think the Canadian mortgages linked to Chinese accounts will likely all be paid. What may be happening is that there is a lot of underground chinese financial activity that is not recorded in Canada and part of this 'network' is utilized to get money out of china.

> think the Canadian mortgages linked to Chinese accounts will likely all be paid Out of curiosity, why? China's stock market is melting down in the midst of persistent deflation. A lot of people who thought they had liquidity may not anymore. Beijing could open the taps, but then that puts pressure on the currency.

> Out of curiosity, why? China's stock market is melting down in the midst of persistent deflation. A lot of people who thought they had liquidity may not anymore. Beijing could open the taps, but then that puts pressure on the currency.

The whole point of the money laundering operation is to get the money out of the country. China going to pot only accelerates it.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#182

Post by dxbydt »

nimbius wrote: post #123
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #108

I have said this over and over again: Canada is the most overrated of all the developed countries. The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate, with horrible service quality, terrible healthcare, no jobs, ZERO innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. Having lived and travelled extensively, most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods instead of doing something meaningful with t…

>most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods instead of doing something meaningful with their lives or try and innovate to build something. to be fair most Canadians were promised this as part of their countries stratospheric growth under neoliberalist policies. that they are not capable of it is no fault of their own. that they want this is at all is not a bane. > Where US got the best talent from India, Cana…

> > Where US got the best talent from India, Canada got the worst,

In India when we graduated our professors would say - you are really good, you should go to the usa. you are quite mediocre, go try your luck in canada. and you, you are a C student, even canada won't take you in. go get married to some indian lady, get a nice fat dowry, raise two kids and send them to college here, maybe they will get better grades than you.

It was perhaps said in jest, but like everything else, there was an element of truth to it. For quite a while, the word canada itself became a pejorative. Many south indian films have a scene where the hero returns after studying abroad & wants to get married, & the heroine's father generally wants to make sure he is a good student & not a scamster from canada.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#183

Post by napierzaza »

speg wrote: post #138
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #108

I have said this over and over again: Canada is the most overrated of all the developed countries. The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate, with horrible service quality, terrible healthcare, no jobs, ZERO innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. Having lived and travelled extensively, most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods instead of doing something meaningful with t…

As a Canadian who has ideas of building an off grid cabin in the woods, what would be a more meaningful life? The stereotypical poor American working menial jobs into their senior years without affordable healthcare doesn’t sound much better…

[dead]

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#184

Post by cbsmith »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #176

Canada needs more housing supply. Blaming foreigners' mortgage applications, sketchy or otherwise, is just cope.

Canada does need more housing supply, and ironically an influx of fraudulent real estate money like this helps to fuel more growth in the supply.

Still, fraud is fraud. Stopping it won't fix Canada's housing problems, but that's not a reason to stand idly by.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#185

Post by preommr »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #108

I have said this over and over again: Canada is the most overrated of all the developed countries. The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate, with horrible service quality, terrible healthcare, no jobs, ZERO innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. Having lived and travelled extensively, most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods instead of doing something meaningful with t…

> The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate, with horrible service quality, terrible healthcare, no jobs, ZERO innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship.

This is so true it hurts.

And while there's some numbers that outsiders can look at and gasp[0] at how absurd it's become, there's a whole lot that isn't being tracked or documented. Official immigration numbers are ~0.5mn for 2023, but (and I've seen it elsewhere, but I can't find it right now) if you use a common sense definition that includes all inflow (e.g. asylum seekers, tfw, foreign students, etc) then it's 1mn+. It's insane for a country of The quality of life in Canada is horrid in a way that's not comparable to anywhere else other than maybe australia. Everything is silly expensive, with low salaries, and it's not like in europe where you can travel 3 hours to go somwehere with cheaper services. It's crazy. Or what about crime, the right wing, tough on crime party leader yesterday said that if someone has 3 convictions for car theft that it should mean 3 years. It's no wonder that I know some crazy personal stories about people getting their cars stolen and the police doing nothing.

Anyways, I don't want to rant even more, all I can hope is that for younger people in Canada to realize that the best thing they can do is hop to the US or something.

[0] https://www.financialsamurai.com/what-if-the-u-s-housing-mar...

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#186

Post by topspin »

ThisIsMyAltAcct wrote: post #25

> The whistleblower, whom The Bureau is calling D.M., immigrated to Canada as an international student from India, making him a minority among mostly Chinese-Canadian co-workers at the Aurora branch. > “I am going to reveal potential mortgage fraud at HSBC Bank Canada and possibly some employees benefited from the fraud, financially pocketing thousands of dollars, which I call the proceeds of crime.” > FINTRAC’s stud…

> Sounds like that branch is compromised

"Since 2015, the whistleblower concluded, more than 10 Toronto-area HSBC branches had issued at least $500-million"

It's not a branch. It's the whole bank. And you can safely infer it's not the only bank.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#187

Post by napierzaza »

thisisnico wrote: post #165
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #108

I have said this over and over again: Canada is the most overrated of all the developed countries. The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate, with horrible service quality, terrible healthcare, no jobs, ZERO innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. Having lived and travelled extensively, most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods instead of doing something meaningful with t…

As a Canadian, living in Southern Ontario, I couldn't agree more with your assessment. Somehow we are ranking #1 on so many charts for quality of life etc. I'm starting to believe these sites and reviews of Canada are paid for. We were an incredible country before Trudeau took office. His aggressive immigration policy, no economic policy or plan, and creation of infighting on social issues, not tackling any of the co…

[dead]

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#188

Post by tasuki »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #108

I have said this over and over again: Canada is the most overrated of all the developed countries. The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate, with horrible service quality, terrible healthcare, no jobs, ZERO innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. Having lived and travelled extensively, most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods instead of doing something meaningful with t…

I worked with an Indian migrant to Canada. He was very good at his job, a great team player, and overall an amazing guy.

Your description is unfair.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#190

Post by ranger_danger »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #108

I have said this over and over again: Canada is the most overrated of all the developed countries. The whole country is a gigantic house of cards propped up by real estate, with horrible service quality, terrible healthcare, no jobs, ZERO innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. Having lived and travelled extensively, most Canadians want a house somewhere in the woods instead of doing something meaningful with t…

> terrible healthcare

that's funny because they sure love to rub their free healthcare in Americans' faces often

Post reply on HN