A Government spokesman said today (October 2) that the Caring and Sharing Scheme has been substantially completed. Up to September 30, the Working Family Allowance Office (WFAO) has completed the processing of about 3.4 million applications, which are about 98 per cent of 3.47 million applications received.
     
     The number of processed applications is broken down below:
 

Approved applications	About 3 million (88%)
Rejected applications	About 350 000 (10%)
Duplicate or applications withdrawn by applicants	About 46 000 (1.4%)

 
     Among the 3 million approved applications, payments in the sum of $10.6 billion have been approved for 2.99 million applications (99 per cent). For the approximately 20 000 remaining applications which were approved recently, the WFAO will arrange payments to the successful applicants this week via bank transfer or via cheque by post for applicants who do not possess bank accounts.

     The WFAO has indicated that more than 60 000 applications (1.8 per cent) are yet to be processed, including more than 50 000 applications in which the applicants have not provided sufficient information for further checking (e.g. applicants have not provided copies of their Hong Kong identity cards, or insufficient information was provided on the application forms). The WFAO has contacted these applicants and asked them to submit the required information as soon as possible. The WFAO will process the applications promptly once the relevant information has been received.

     Furthermore, about 12 000 application forms, which have been duly received and acknowledged, and had their initial data input into the system, may have been packed away with processed forms and have not yet been located. Their processing is therefore pending. To expedite processing of these cases, the WFAO has contacted the applicants concerned via SMS. Meanwhile, the WFAO will check all the application forms in hand in order to locate the outstanding application forms mentioned above. If any application forms cannot be located, the WFAO will follow up with the affected applicants separately, and will notify the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data. 

     Applicants who wish to know the status of their applications may make enquiries with the WFAO by emailing careandshare@wfsfaa.gov.hk or calling the hotline at 3897 1088 (60 lines).

Ends/Wednesday, October 2, 2019
Issued at HKT 18:00

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