GE Money, the financial arm of United States conglomerate General Electric, has decided to cease writing new mortgages and other lending in Hong Kong from today.
However, the international lender would maintain its outstanding loan book worth US$1.5 billion in Hong Kong and said existing clients would not be affected by the decision.
'This has been a difficult decision because over the years we have had a profitable franchise in Hong Kong,' said Rahul Gupta, the president and chief executive of GE Money.
However, market volatility and the lack of operating scale made it difficult for the company to continue to run the business in the long term, he said.
Mr Gupta said lending margins had been squeezed.
'The decision [to stop lending] is in line with our global strategy of redeploying capital of the organisation to areas that will generate higher returns in the long term,' he said.