Hong Kong suffers $5bn of capital outflows due to protests, BoE says

Hong Kong has seen as much as $5bn of capital flee from the Asian financial hub since April in the wake of recent political unrest and the ongoing protests, said the Bank of England on Tuesday.

Capital flight worth nearly 1.25% of the special administrative region's GDP ensued after the local government backed a bill that would allow extraditions to mainland China, revealed the BoE’s Financial Stability Report released on Monday.

“These political tensions pose risks, given Hong Kong’s position as a major financial center,” the report said.

The BoE was looking into Hong Kong closely because UK banks such as HSBC and Standard Chartered are also the leading lenders there, although both passed the BoE’s stress tests by a comfortable margin.

However, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the central bank in the territory, said there were no signs of significant capital outflows from the city.