Banks including HSBC, Standard Chartered and Citigroup have seen a spike in enquiries from Hong Kong residents about opening offshore accounts amid concerns stemming from China's decision to impose a national security law on the city, five people said.
) have each seen a 25-30% jump in enquiries, two of the people said. All five have direct knowledge about the rise in interest but did not want to be named as they were not authorized to speak to media.
“What I’m worried about the most is I might not be able to freely exchange Hong Kong dollar anymore if the U.S. decided to sanction Hong Kong,” said 39-year-old May Chan, who recently asked HSBC about opening an offshore account. But the rise in enquiries has been strong enough to slow banks’ response times, the sources said, adding places including Singapore, Britain, Sydney and Taiwan, are popular destinations.
“If things get messy here I might not even be able to transfer my money out in the worst-case scenario, so it’s good to diversify risks.”While authorities insist the legislation will target only a small number of “troublemakers”, critics say it could erode the high degree of autonomy of the former British colony.
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