HSBC is ‘doing the dirty work of the Chinese Communist Party’, claim MPs

Bank complicit after denying citizens access to their savings, says report

riot police outside an HSBC in Hong Kong in 2020
Riot police outside an HSBC during pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2020 Credit: Lam Yik/Bloomberg

HSBC is complicit in human rights abuses against Hong Kong citizens, MPs have said.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong said the FTSE 100 bank had sided with communist China and was blocking pensions payouts for those who fled to Britain.

The cross-party report said the lender was “unjustly” denying its customers access to their own savings.

“The bank’s reliance on Hong Kong as a profit-hub means it cannot afford to attract Beijing’s ire, and there have been a number of decisions where it has been forced to endorse the Chinese Communist party line,” the report said.

Alistair Carmichael, co-chair of the group and a member of the Liberal Democrats, said banks were “doing the dirty work of the Chinese Communist Party”.

The report claimed that HSBC blocked payments after saying entry documents provided by the British government to Hong Kong immigrants were not sufficient to unlock their money.

More than 88,000 people have been granted residency in the UK since early 2021 after leaving Hong Kong under the British National Overseas (BNO) visa scheme.

The 23-page report by the group of MPs and Lords said HSBC withheld access to Mandatory Provident Funds, a compulsory savings programme for Hong Kong residents.

Ted Hui, a Hong Kong politician, wrote to the APPG, saying HSBC blocked his and his family’s bank accounts following his involvement in pro-democracy demonstrations and accused the lender of “political obediance”.

Mr Carmichael told Bloomberg: “This is no longer just about the interpretation of the law, this is about the fundamental rights of an individual to have access to their own property.

“This is causing genuine hardship for people who have made the difficult decision to leave Hong Kong.”

HSBC said in a statement that it respected human rights and “like all banks, we have to obey the law, and the instructions of the regulators, in every territory in which we operate”.

HSBC has repeatedly come under fire from activists and politicians for publicly supporting a Beijing-backed law introduced in 2020 that bans anti-government activity in the former British colony.

The law continues to attract widespread criticism. Campaigners say it has led to a rapid dismantling of Hong Kong's freedoms.

The APPG report demanded that banks unfreeze the accounts of political activists considered central to the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

HSBC chief executive Noel Quinn was questioned by MPs over the bank's operations in Hong Kong, its biggest generator of revenue and profit.

Giving evidence in January 2021, Mr Quinn said HSBC had to comply with the law and it was not for him to make a “moral or political judgement on these matters”.

License this content