HSBC under fire over blocked Hong Kong pensions

HSBC is one of many global companies accused of blocking access to the pension funds of thousands of Hong Kongers who left the city to escape a brutal political crackdown.

The UK offered Hong Kong residents a path to full citizenship if they had British National Overseas (BNO) status following the suppression of pro-democracy protests in 2019.

That angered China, and in 2021, the Beijing-controlled Hong Kong government passed a law prohibiting immediate disbursement of pension funds to those who left.

HSBC, alongside investment managers such as Fidelity and Invesco, is among those preventing people from accessing £2.2 billion in pension assets, according to research by activist group Hong Kong Watch.

Sam Goodman, the group’s director of policy and advocacy, said the law was “a blanket ban on BNO holders from accessing property that belongs to them” and that 90,000 people were “punished” for immigrating to Britain. Britain.

HSBC, as well as several other banks, insurers and institutions, offer pensions under Hong Kong’s mandatory retirement savings system.

Residents are generally allowed to reclaim pension money if they move abroad permanently.

But the Hong Kong government said emigration under BNO was not a valid reason to withdraw the money early.

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘I find HSBC’s behavior shameful. They act like salt licks to the Chinese government at every turn.

They are a registered UK bank and they have to decide if they want to keep kowtowing to Beijing.

This is not their money. This retirement money is what these people earn because they contributed to it. HSBC is an untrustworthy bank for anyone concerned about what is going on in Hong Kong.”

MP Alistair Carmichael, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong, accused the bank of “doing the Chinese Communist Party’s dirty work”.

HSBC said: “Like all banks, we must obey the law and the instructions of regulators in every region in which we operate.”