Banking (Capital) Rules and Banking (Disclosure) Rules

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced today (Friday) that the Legislative Council (LegCo) has completed its negative vetting of the Banking (Capital) Rules and Banking (Disclosure) Rules gazetted on 27 October 2006.

Made by the Monetary Authority under the new powers provided by sections 98A and 60A of the Banking Ordinance (which were introduced by the Banking (Amendment) Ordinance 2005), the Rules are subsidiary legislation prescribing how the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of locally incorporated authorized institutions shall be calculated and what information on the state of affairs, profit and loss and CAR shall be publicly disclosed by authorized institutions.

Two resolutions containing a number of minor refinements to the Rules were published in the Gazette on 1 December 2006. These resolutions result from comments of the LegCo Secretariat during the negative vetting and seek to improve the clarity of the Rules such as by introducing or revising definitions of certain terms and achieve consistency in the terminology used in the Rules. The resolutions can be accessed under the "Basel II" icon on the HKMA website at www.hkma.gov.hk.

The two sets of Rules, as amended by the resolutions, will come into operation on 1 January 2007.

Mr William Ryback, Deputy Chief Executive of the HKMA, said that "it is very satisfying that all of the necessary legislation to allow Basel II to be implemented in Hong Kong is now in place. Driving the development of Basel II has been the belief that it will benefit the banking industry and benefit business in Hong Kong. As we now move into the implementation phase, our focus will be on ensuring that these benefits are realised."

For further enquiries, please contact:
Hing-fung Wong, Officer (Press), at 2878 1802 or
Thomas Chan, Senior Manager (Press), at 2878 1480

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
1 December 2006