Bank halts mainland yuan service
Wing Hang Bank, one of the first local banks to offer a service making it easier for Hong Kong customers to hold yuan deposits on the mainland, has stopped offering the service following talks with mainland regulators.
There are fears the mainland intends to put a stop to similar services offered by other Hong Kong banks.
Wing Hang Bank would only offer customers yuan deposit accounts in Hong Kong for now, said its chairman and chief executive, Patrick Fung Yuk-bun, at its annual general meeting yesterday. He did not name the regulator involved.
'This is the best solution,' he said.
Depositors wanting to open yuan deposit accounts on the mainland would now have to travel over the border to do so.
Some savers choose to deposit yuan with mainland banks because they pay much higher interest than Hong Kong banks pay on yuan or Hong Kong dollar deposits.
Last night Bank of East Asia, which started one-stop mainland yuan deposit services last week, and ICBC (Asia), said they had no plans to stop offering them.
Billy Mak Sui-choi, associate professor of finance at Hong Kong Baptist University, said Wing Hang's withdrawal of the cross-border service could be a one-off.
'The mainland regulator will speak out if they have any concern,' he said. 'They don't need to pass on the message through a small bank.'
