of the basle committee. in the meantime, we do not impose constraints on access to customer information in the course of on - site examinations in hong kong by overseas regulators. what reservations i have about consolidated supervision therefore relate mainly to how the system operates in practice : first, it may of course be difficult in practice to assess the adequacy of consolidated supervision by a home supervisor and how much reliance should be placed on it by the host supervisor. as mentioned above, the core principles for effective banking supervision will provide a useful checklist in this respect, but there will still be the problem of whether the principles are being effectively implemented. a more active monitoring role by the international monetary fund may help in this respect. but in some cases the best judgment that it may be possible to make is that the supervisory authority is actively working to establish the necessary capability - which is essentially the view that we have taken in relation to the people ’ s bank of china in licensing banks from the mainland ; second, it is important to realize that, in undertaking consolidated supervision, the primary responsibility of the home supervisor will be to safeguard the interests of the parent bank. while this should hopefully help to promote the safety and soundness of the banking group as a whole, including overseas banking subsidiaries, the interests of home and host supervisor may not necessarily coincide. despite this, the various regulators should, of course, try to cooperate to the maximum extent possible ; third, and related to the previous point, cooperation will only be possible if there is an adequate two - way flow of information. however, the main focus of consolidated supervision sometimes appears to be for the home supervisor to obtain information from the host supervisor. there is less emphasis on reciprocal flows. for example, in the recent paper prepared jointly by the basle committee and the offshore group of banking supervisors on supervision of cross - border banking, only four paragraphs out of forty - three are devoted to information flows from home supervisor to host supervisor. in our experience, home supervisors can be reluctant to share information with us, either at the time of authorization or, more particularly, if serious problems arise in the parent bank. in some cases, however, the situation is improving and the recent more proactive approach of the japanese supervisory authorities deserves a commendable mention in this respect. i stress again that i am not intending to cast doubt on the value of consolidated supervision, but rather to point out that the reality does not always match the rhetoric. the answer can only be

arthur yuen : bank account opening and maintenance opening remarks by mr arthur yuen, deputy chief executive of the hong kong monetary authority, at the briefing cum networking session on " bank account opening and maintenance ", hong kong, 21 april 2017. * * * good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, 1. a very warm welcome to all of you to this briefing and networking session. we are going to discuss the important issue of business account opening and maintenance, and this event is jointly organised by the hkma and invest hong kong. i would like to first of all welcome all the representatives of chambers of commerce, who share the same concern as the hkma that some smes and start - up companies from overseas are finding it difficult to open bank accounts in hong kong. 2. i am sure you would all appreciate that over the past years, customer due diligence ( cdd ) requirements have tightened globally, and hong kong followed this international trend. needless to mention is also that a very small number of banks, for a variety of reasons, need to comply with requirements or standards mandated by their head offices or overseas authorities, thus leading to de - risking efforts in some instances. surely no one would disagree that we are now in a more complex world, and sometimes we indeed have to deal with sub - optimal outcome. but i totally appreciate that knowing it is one thing, and experiencing the effect of it is quite another. 3. to address this concern of the business community, the hkma has been working very hard with banks and various stakeholders in tackling the issue. our aim is to maintain a robust aml regime in hong kong while the system does not undermine access by legitimate businesses and ordinary citizens to basic banking services. so we require banks to apply a risk - based approach to the cdd process, and also emphasize the importance of banks ’ engagement with customers to ensure that they are treated fairly. since our sharing session last summer and the further guidance we provided to banks last september, it is now time to take stock of the latest developments. i will leave it to the banks to talk more about the improvement measures that they have pursued or are pursuing. they would also discuss the various practical aspects relating to account opening and account maintenance at the panel discussion later on. 4. while full efforts are being made to improve the situation, there is also feedback that some foreign companies are under the perception that hong kong is not a welcoming place for business, and have therefore turned to banks in