Hong Kong, Singapore seek to ease deposit protection

The governments plan to end full bank-deposit guarantees by the end of 2010, Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Tsang told reporters in Singapore after meeting officials from the two countries, according to a government transcript released late Wednesday.

“If we were to do it together, we could enhance the certainty, the stability factor in the region,” Tsang said in the transcript.

In September 2008, Hong Kong guaranteed bank deposits up to HK$100,000 until the end of 2010, after the Bank of East Asia Ltd. was the target of the city's first bank run in more than a decade. Singapore and Malaysia started guaranteeing deposits in October last year to shore up confidence in their financial institutions amid the deepening global credit crisis.

Hong Kong's government in April increased the maximum amount insured to HK$500,000.

Taiwan extended its bank deposit guarantee program to the end of 2010, the island's Premier Wu Den-yih said Sept. 18.

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