HSBC under fire over blocked Hong Kong pensions

HSBC is among several global firms 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 held British National Overseas (BNO) status following the repression of pro-democracy protests in 2019.

That angered China and in 2021 the Beijing-controlled Hong Kong government passed a law preventing pension funds from being immediately paid out to those who left.

Frozen out: HSBC is among several global firms accused of blocking access to the pension funds of thousands of Hong Kongers who left the city to escape a brutal political crackdown 

HSBC, alongside investment managers such as Fidelity and Invesco, is among those preventing people accessing £2.2billion in pension assets, according to research from 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 accessing the property that is theirs’ and that 90,000 people were being ‘punished’ for immigrating to Britain.

HSBC as well as several other banks, insurers and institutions, offers pensions under the Hong Kong mandatory provident fund retirement saving system.

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

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

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘I think HSBC’s behaviour is shameful. They act like lickspittles for the Chinese government at every turn. 

They are a registered UK bank and they need to decide whether they want to keep kowtowing to Beijing.

‘This is not their money. This pension money is what these people deserve because they contributed to it. HSBC are an unreliable bank for anyone that is concerned about what is going on in Hong Kong.’

Alistair Carmichael MP, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong, accused the bank of ‘doing the dirty work of the Chinese communist party’. 

HSBC said: ‘Like all banks, we have to obey the law, and the instructions of regulators, in every region in which we operate.’