HSBC will allow only vaccinated staff and visitors to enter its premises beginning on March 28, becoming the first of Hong Kong’s banks to enforce the local monetary authority’s policy to urge more residents to protect themselves against Covid-19 . Its subsidiary Hang Seng Bank will implement similar rules on the same day, while Standard Chartered will follow suit from April 1. The HSBC Safe Pass scheme requires employees or visitors to any of its branches or buildings to have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine jab from March 28 unless there is a medical exemption, moving the barrier to two doses from April 30, and three doses from June 30, according to the bank’s memo to 20,000 staff, seen by the Post . Unvaccinated customers are exempted from the rule, but those who have not received at least one shot will be restricted to designated areas when they visit the bank’s headquarters in Central, or the HSBC Centre in Kowloon, according to the memo. “Vaccination is one of the most important ways we can keep our colleagues and customers safe, in addition to maintaining our services as normal,” said HSBC, the largest of Hong Kong’s three currency-issuing banks. HSBC is the first local bank to implement an instruction issued on February 18 by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) to bar unvaccinated staff from their premises. The city’s de facto central bank is doing its part to spur vaccination, as the Covid-19 outbreak has worsened, infecting 238,377 people in the city of 7.5 million people, with32,597 new cases on Tuesday alone. Hong Kong’s 165 licensed banks were given two weeks by the HKMA to implement the policy, with the deadline due at the end of this week. HSBC said 90 per cent of its employees in Hong Kong have received at least the first Covid-19 vaccine dose, while those who are unvaccinated are working from home. Hong Kong’s government offices and financial regulators including the HKMA, the Insurance Authority and the Mandatory Provident Schemes Authority began implementing the so-called vaccine pass policy on February 16. Staff who are unfit to receive Covid-19 vaccines on medical grounds need to be tested regularly. Other banks plan to roll out similar arrangement. Hang Seng Bank, a subsidiary of HSBC, will implement similar measures to its parent, with the same timeline, a spokeswoman said. From April 1, Standard Chartered will also only allow staff who have had their first jab to enter the workplace. However, it will not have same requirement for clients. “The majority of the bank’s staff have been vaccinated. For those who are unable to get their shots due to medical or other reasons, the bank will handle on a case-by-case basis,” a Standard Chartered spokeswoman said. Bank of East Asia and DBS both indicated they are in the process of finalising the details for implementation of the vaccine pass.