HK Banks Urged to Use Profit Growth to Raise Provisions: HKEJ

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority urges banks to increase provisioning for bad debts amid China’s real estate debt crisis, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reports, citing unidentified people.

• Arthur Yuen, deputy chief executive of HKMA, told a group of medium-sized banks they should take advantage of steady profit growth in 2023 to handle problematic assets
  • HKMA will leave the decision to banks as they weigh costs of different options and to auditors based on accounting standards
• HKMA expects classified loan ratio to rise further to about 2% at the end of December
• A spokesperson for HKMA told HKEJ that ...