HONG KONG MONETARY AUTHORITY Annual Report 1996
HONG KONG MONETARY AUTHORITY
CHALLENGES
FINE TUNING THE RTGS SYSTEM
The HKMA must maintain the significant progress it has made in developing Hong Kong's interbank payment system and the debt market. On RTGS, the immediate challenges ahead are to enhance and fine tune the system to make it more robust and user friendly, to continue to monitor its performance and the banks' payment behaviour, in particular their compliance with the CHATS throughput guideline, and to continue discussions with other financial centres to explore the possibility of establishing PvP linkages in order to reduce settlement risk in foreign exchange transactions.
SECURITIES LENDING PROGRAMME UNDER CMU
A challenge ahead is to introduce a securities lending programme to further improve the liquidity of private sector debt securities, and to establish bilateral linkages with the domestic central depositories in the region to facilitate cross border trading and investment in debt securities.
LAUNCH OF THE MORTGAGE CORPORATION
Preparatory work for setting up the Mortgage Corporation has progressed smoothly (Table 5). The Memorandum and Articles of Association of the company has been finalised and the master mortgage purchase and servicing agreements are being prepared. The HKMA will hand over the preparatory work to the Mortgage Corporation when its board of directors is constituted in the first half of 1997. It is expected that the company will commence operation in the fourth quarter of 1997.