HSBC, Hang Seng, Standard Chartered to bar unvaccinated staff from Hong Kong branches, first batch of banks to enforce city’s vaccine pass policy
- HSBC will continue to serve unvaccinated customers, exempting them from the policy, according to a memo to staff
- ‘Vaccination is one of the most important ways we can keep our colleagues and customers safe, in addition to maintaining our services as normal,’ HSBC said
Its subsidiary Hang Seng Bank will implement similar rules on the same day, while Standard Chartered will follow suit from April 1.
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.