The Banking (Disclosure) (Amendment) Rules 2018 and the Banking (Specification of Multilateral Development Bank) (Amendment) Notice 2018 were gazetted today (May 4) to implement some recent international standards on banking regulation in Hong Kong.
 
     The Disclosure Rules seek mainly to implement the latest disclosure requirements issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) in March 2017 to enhance the requirements in terms of transparency, comparability and user-relevance of bank disclosures.
 
     The Amendment Notice reflects a BCBS decision in October 2017 to specify the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as a multilateral development bank to which banks' exposures will be eligible for preferential capital and liquidity treatment.
 
     A government spokesman said, "The continuation of Basel III implementation represents our commitment to aligning our regulatory regime with the latest international regulatory standards. This is important to Hong Kong as a major international financial centre."
 
     A Hong Kong Monetary Authority spokesman said, "The Disclosure Rules are a continuation of our effort to promote market discipline in the banking sector through enhanced regulatory disclosure. The Amendment Notice will ensure that the capital and liquidity frameworks of local authorized institutions are brought up to date. We have consulted the banking industry in the course of formulating the two instruments."
 
     The Disclosure Rules and the Amendment Notice will be tabled before the Legislative Council at its sitting on May 9, 2018 (Wednesday) for negative vetting, and will come into operation on June 30, 2018.

Ends/Friday, May 4, 2018
Issued at HKT 12:00

NNNN