As the money laundering saga continued to snowball, Taiwan lawmakers alleged former President Ma Yingjeous involvement in the illegal transactions. Ma was also the Chairman of Kuomintang (KMT), the second largest political party in Taiwan and the ruling party at that time, which was alleged to have used Mega Bank to conduct money laundering activities. In its defense, KMT released the results of an investigation by the Legislative Yuan, showing that none of the 174 suspicious transactions flagged by DFS had passed through Taiwan. However, political activists still found it difficult to ignore the possibility that Mega Bank had assisted KMT in cleaning up illicitly gained assets. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Luo Chih-cheng alleged that Mega Bank had been used to empty out KMTs assets, while Mega-New York was used to laundering them. Another DPP legislator, Su Chen-ching, also highlighted the fact that the bank had increased its loan to KMT-backed businesses, from NT$3.68 billion in 2010 to NT$11.19 billion in 2015. Although Mega Bank became a privatized bank, it still maintained some inextricable links to the Taiwan government. As of September 2016, the Ministry of Finance was the largest single investor of Mega Bank, with an 8.4% share ownership, and was able to appoint seven directors on the MFHC board to represent its interests. The track records of the two ex-Chairmen of MFHC were indicative of their connections with the government. Tsai, who served as Chairman of MFHC from 1 July 2010 to 1 April 2016, had also served in various governmental Organisations. In fact, he was appointed to the board by former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou. Shiu, who succeeded Tsai as Chairman of MFHC on 16 August 2016, had served as the Chairman of partially state-owned Hua Nan Financial Holdings and held high-level positions at state-owned banks. Shiu also served as the president of MFHC and Mega Bank previously. Amid criticism over possible conflicts of interest in the Mega Bank scandal, Shiu resigned from his position as Chairman within two weeks of his appointment, on 31 August 2016.

Given the strong governmental influence on Taiwanese banks, evaluate the effectiveness of the regulators as the fourth line of defense in the financial industry.