Granting of banking licence to Bank SinoPac

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced today (Monday) that the Monetary Authority has granted a banking licence to Bank SinoPac (BSP) under the Banking Ordinance. This grant of banking licence took effect on 13 September 2002.

BSP is a bank incorporated in Taiwan and has maintained a local representative office since 1998. It is the first overseas-incorporated bank, meeting the recently relaxed market entry criteria, authorized by the HKMA as a fully licensed bank. In May this year, the Executive Council endorsed the HKMA's proposal to relax certain market entry criteria for the banking sector. These include replacing the US$16 billion asset size criterion for overseas-incorporated bank applicants by the much lower balance sheet size criteria applicable to locally incorporated bank applicants, which are HK$3 billion for customer deposits and HK$4 billion for total assets.

BSP, according to The Banker, July 2002 issue, ranked 458^th and 438^th in the world and 20^th and 16^th in Taiwan in terms of tier 1 capital and total assets respectively.

With the grant of a banking licence to BSP, the number of licensed banks in Hong Kong has increased to 135.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Jasmin Fung, Manager (Press), at 2878 8246 or
Sylvia Yip, Manager (Press), at 2878 1687

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
16 September 2002