Pakistani teens struggle to open bank accounts

For most people, setting up a bank account in Hong Kong is a simple procedure. Go to the bank, provide identification documents, verify a residential address, wait for about half an hour and bingo, you have a savings account.

But for Pakistanis Khawaja Hassan Faraz, 17, and Fayyz Qasim, 19, it was not so easy. When they tried to open bank accounts, bank staff told them they were from a terrorist country and refused to say if or when their saving accounts would be set up.

Fermi Wong Wai-fun, director of rights group Unison, said such cases were not rare in Hong Kong, and an Equal Opportunities Commission spokesman said the case could be a contravention of the anti-discrimination law if it were proven that poor treatment of the pair occurred because of race or nationality.

The youths said they needed to set up saving accounts because they had obtained part-time jobs at a fast-food chain. They went to the Chai Wan, New Jade Garden branch of Hang Seng Bank on Wednesday. They explained that they had to apply for accounts at the Hang Seng Bank because that was the fast-food chain's appointed bank.

Despite providing proof of identity and residential addresses, and birth certificates, Mr Faraz and Mr Qasim were also asked to produce their student handbooks and student identity cards. And although they had yet to start work, bank staff demanded proof of income. One employee apparently asked them during the application process: 'Why don't you go to another bank?'

They felt they had both been discriminated against.