Hong Kong’s third wave of coronavirus infections has led banks not only to reinstate measures but reportedly intensify them to deal with what has now reached record daily infection rates.
Banks across the board are returning to semi-lockdown mode with some turning up risk aversion as Hong Kong’s third wave begins to register record daily infection rates.
Citi in Hong Kong will ask «most people» to adopt work from home (WFH) measures after having already as much as 70 percent doing so in the previous week, according to a «Bloomberg» report, which is yet higher than the approximate 50 percent before the third wave.
60 percent of staff at UBS will also adopt WFH measures – a three-fold increase from two weeks ago. Barclays will house less than 50 percent of staff in their offices, after previously having as much as 60 percent physically at work.
Branch Hours Down
Banks have also cut physical branch capacity in Hong Kong with HSBC, Bank of East Asia, Hang Seng, Standard Chartered, Bank of China (Hong Kong) and more all indicating reduced service hours of between 30 minutes and two hours, according to an «SCMP» report. In the case of banks like HSBC and ICBC (Asia), some branches will be completely closed.
In addition to announcing the service hour changes on their websites, all of the banks also urged customers to use mobile or digital banking, the report added.
Record Daily Infections
After weeks of little to no daily infections, Hong Kong has been hit by a third wave which recently registered a single-day high of 100-plus cases with a total now nearing 2,000.
Over the weekend, HSBC also confirmed that one of its employees tested positive for the virus after returning from abroad, the «Bloomberg» report added, citing an internal memo. The infected individual was last in HSBC’s office in February and has had no face-to-face contact with other staff or business associates in the last 14 days, the memo said.
