Banks are doing BN(O)ers in UK a favour by withholding their MPF pensions
- Anti-China MPs in Britain have claimed human rights violations by banks such as HSBC for making MPF withdrawals difficult while their own government has seized US$2 billion worth of gold from the people of Venezuela
Given its colonial history and self-inflicted mishaps in recent decades, it’s hard to feel sorry for HSBC. Long gone are the days when Hong Kong investors said, “it’s never wrong to hold their stock even if you have paid too much for them”.
However, the latest human rights criticism of the bank, and to a lesser extent Standard Chartered, by a group of British MPs rather takes the cake when it comes to politicians pumping out opportunistic hot air. But for the United States government, it may well be regarded as the gold standard of Anglo-American hypocrisy. Some of the claims made in the report are highly exaggerated; others are half-truths or out of the local context.
On those MPs’ telling, the British banks have committed human rights abuses in Hong Kong, first, by expressing support for the national security law, even though it is the law of the land in which they operate and, second, by HSBC declining pension withdrawal requests of BN(O)ers under Hong Kong’s Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) as they and their families resettle in Britain. It would be hard to read a more nonsensical report.
Let’s just say for all the fire and brimstone in the British report, those BN(O)ers will eventually get their money back, if not now – because many left in a hurry – then later.
As a practical matter, we are also talking about very meagre amounts that most of those accounts are likely to hold. When you are in your 20s and 30s, the age groups of many BN(O)ers, how much do you think they have in those accounts?
The whole purpose of those MPs, who call themselves “All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong”, is to use any excuse to manufacture another Chinese human rights violation story. But even if those claims were true, they pale in comparison to the highway robbery being committed by their own government in seizing roughly US$2 billion worth of gold, held in the Bank of England, that belongs to the people of Venezuela. If those MPs fret so much about human rights, maybe they should take up the Venezuelan cause, now that the UK has quietly dumped Juan Guaido as the country’s “legitimate” leader.
It’s hardly surprising, though, that the British government is hanging on to the gold, just as its American counterpart has effectively robbed the Afghan people of half of more than US$7 billion of their country’s foreign exchange reserves to pay for 9/11 victims and their families. The other half is being held in a Swiss foundation, which presumably is still controlled by the US government. Last time I checked, the Afghan people didn’t commit the terrorist attacks in 2001; many of them weren’t even born or were children.
In what amounts to financial terrorism, the British and American governments have been asset-stripping “hostile” foreign sovereign states, and transferring those assets to their own citizens or foreign agents engaged in subversion, destabilisation and regime change.
Now you have the big picture, let’s consider this tiny picture involving Hong Kong. HSBC and Standard Chartered are breaching the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Seriously, that’s what those MPs claim.
But how many of those MPF accounts are being held up? The report doesn’t say. It did cite the case of Ted Hui Chi-fung, the former local lawmaker who jumped bail and is now a fugitive from the law. Should HSBC just wire over the money to him? The ridiculous thing is that Hui is not even in Britain, but Australia, so how is his criminal case any of their business?
The MPF does allow a one-time early withdrawal for: 1. early retirement; 2. permanent departure from Hong Kong; 3. total incapacity; 4. terminal illness; 5. small balance.
The banks are following the Hong Kong and central governments in not recognising the validity of BN(O) passports. However, you can claim early retirement. That may take more time to process. Did many BN(O)ers just throw down their invalid passports at the banks to demand immediate MPF withdrawals because they wanted to leave in a hurry and didn’t plan ahead? PLA tanks were rolling in, they thought!
Actually, I think banks are doing those BN(O)ers a favour. Given the state of the British economy, there is anecdotal evidence that a wave of returnees has started. They will be glad they still have their MPF accounts to hold on to when they come back. The same goes with those who will have their permanent residency applications rejected after staying there for five years.
As for those who have settled for the long haul or permanently in Britain, they can always claim retirement down the road to get their MPFs back, assuming they are not fleeing from the law like Hui.
A word of advice. Post-Brexit, big international banks and hedge funds are busy relocating their headquarters to Brussels, Berlin and Paris, so those MPs really should take it easy on those few British banks left behind.
