Shares of HSBC Holdings (0005) and Standard Chartered (2888) climb today after the banks gave their backing to the Hong Kong national security law yesterday
Some staff at the banks and analysts said the British-based banks' stance on the law would help them protect their businesses in their single most important market of Hong Kong.
As at 1:25pm, HSBC and StanChart advanced by 1.57 percent and 2.76 percent, respectively.
HSBC’s Asia-Pacific Chief Executive, Peter Wong Tung-shun, signed a petition backing the law, the bank said. HSBC "respects and supports all laws that stabilize Hong Kong’s social order," it said in a post on social media in the mainland.
Wong, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, told the official Xinhua news agency in an interview published yesterday he hoped the law could bring stability to Hong Kong.
HSBC moved its headquarters to London in 1993, but Hong Kong is still its biggest market.
StanChart later said it believed the law can “help maintain the long term economic and social stability of Hong Kong”.
Also, Jardine Matheson Holdings, one of the city's oldest British trading houses, joined major businesses voicing support for the controversial law.
"Establishing a legal framework for safeguarding national security is very important and can ensure continued investment in Hong Kong," the group said in a full-page advertisement in the pro-Beijing newspaper Ta Kung Pao yesterday.
"The Jardines Group has roots in Hong Kong and will continue to invest. Its promise to Hong Kong has never changed."-Reuters/Bloomberg/The Standard
HSBC's Peter Wong signing a petition backing the HK national security law. (Internet photos)
Jardine Matheson's full-page advertisement in Ta Kung Pao yesterday.
