The closing weeks of 2024 brought troubling news from Hong Kong, from the jailing of 45 democracy activists to a guilty verdict for seven people charged with “rioting” for trying to stop a violent thug attack.
Away from the headlines, an equally insidious form of repression is playing out: the problem of more than 120,000 recent Hong Kong exiles who have been cut off from their retirement savings since 2021.
Hong Kong Watch has found that Hong Kongers were being denied access to over £3 billion (US$3.8 billion) of money they paid into the city’s retirement scheme, known as the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF).
On Dec. 19 in London, Hong Kong Watch joined the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong and Stand with Hong Kong in a hearing on the withholding of Hong Kongers’ MPF savings in the British Parliament.
The MPF is a compulsory retirement savings scheme for the people of Hong Kong. Under the legal guidelines which govern MPF savings, Hong Kongers are entitled to withdraw their money in full once they complete a declaration form stating that they have permanently departed from Hong Kong.
However, after Hong Kong authorities announced in in January 2021 that they no longer recognized the British National (Overseas) (BNO) passport as a valid form of identity , an estimated 126,500 Hong Kongers have been blocked from accessing their MPF savings.
The British Parliament heard that this number is likely higher, as the mere awareness of an overwhelming number of cases being rejected discourages Hong Kongers from applying for withdrawal.
The three Hong Kongers who testified this month also emphasized that the Hong Kong government’s non-recognition of the BNO passport has no basis in law, as there have been no legal changes made to the MPF Trust Deed.
As of the end of June, the total value of all MPF schemes was a little over £122 billion.
Taking the average MPF account size of £26,000, and multiplying it by the number of BNO visa holders at 127,000, there is over £3.25 billion worth of MPF assets that Hong Kongers are currently being denied access to as of Sept. 30.
Bank no-shows
The London-headquartered MPF trustee banks, HSBC and Standard Chartered, which manage £37 billion and £758 million worth of MPF savings respectively, were invited to testify at the hearing.
However, despite a personal request from Blair McDougall, the chair of the APPG on Hong Kong and host of the hearing, HSBC rejected the request to appear before Parliament and Standard Chartered failed to respond.
Their refusal and silence speaks louder than words.
Specifically, in their response to the APPG on Hong Kong and to 13 Parliamentarians who inquired about how the HSBC restructure will affect MPF claimants, HSBC claims that they are legally bound by Hong Kong legislation in their non-recognition of the BNO passport as proof of identity.
Yet the non-recognition of the BNO passport is not legally binding but a tactic of transnational repression against those who have fled from the quickly deteriorating human rights environment in Hong Kong.
The BNO passport is also a UK government-issued identity document, which the UK government should immediately make clear to the UK-headquartered MPF trustees.
In addition to the non-recognition of the BNO passport, MPF trustees have denied access to MPF savings for accounts which are “under investigation” by the Hong Kong government.
This is applicable for accounts connected to the Hong Kongers who were issued arrest warrants with HK$1 million bounties for participating in pro-democracy activities in 2023.
This further demonstrates that the blocking of MPF savings is a form of financial transnational repression.
Suffering, lost opportunities
The Hong Kongers who testified at the hearing included Chloe Lo, a single mother who shared, “Last winter, I could barely pay my heating bill and my child and I experienced the coldest winter of our lives.”
This could have been avoided if she had access to the £57,000 in her MPF account.
The other Hong Kongers said that accessing their MPF savings would allow them to pursue further education in the UK and to invest in British businesses.
Their testimonies coincided with a letter sent directly to HSBC last week from nearly 400 Hong Kongers in the UK, urging the financial institution to immediately release the savings that rightfully belong to them.
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HSBC is mistaken in refusing to appear before Parliament, as their refusal only demonstrates HSBC’s complicity in the financial transnational repression of the Hong Kong government.
One Hong Konger who testified and whose MPF account has depreciated by 5% in 2024 alone said, “It is obvious that HSBC is arbitrarily holding our savings to roll up the assets and squeeze the administration cost and capital gains from the investment.”
Following the hearing, the Parliament is keen to continue raising this issue, and to press the UK government to issue guidance to and have conversations with HSBC and Standard Chartered about the validity of the BNO passport.
This is not just a matter for the Hong Kong authorities but also for the UK ones who issue BNO passports and are responsible for the more than 180,000 Hong Kongers who now call Britain home.
To conclude the hearing, chair McDougall said that we often talk about the cost of human rights violations against individuals around the world but how in this case, there is an actual number on that cost.
He also said that both HSBC and Standard Chartered “still have questions to answer, even if they are not willing to open themselves to scrutiny.”
This could not be more spot on, and this is not the end of HSBC and Standard Chartered being invited to appear before Parliament.
Megan Khoo is policy director at the international NGO Hong Kong Watch. Khoo, based in London, has served in communications roles at foreign policy non-profit organizations in London and Washington, D.C.. The views expressed here do not reflect the position of Radio Free Asia.