A former business school owner, who cheated three banks as part of a study loan scam, was on Thursday jailed for 34 months. Benny Yap Chee Mun, 42, remained expressionless during his sentencing in a District Court.

He is appealing both his April 18 conviction and Thursday's sentence on 13 charges of cheating or helping to cheat the banks into lending $145,500 to people who were not students.

Yap did this by providing the banks with letters of acceptance from Brookes Business School. These purportedly showed that the borrowers had secured places in his school which is now defunct.

Together with 39-year-old education agent Ron Go Boon Chai, Yap took substantial cuts from the loans and passed the rest to the recipients who were Singaporeans or permanent residents. Yap's bail was also raised on Thursday from $600,000 to $700,000 because of the conviction. He still has 312 other charges against him, including offering dud degrees. A pre-trial conference has been set on Aug 13.