HK financial regulators welcome UBS' acquisition of Credit Suisse

HONG KONG, March 20 (Xinhua) -- The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) on Monday welcomed the acquisition of Credit Suisse AG by UBS AG.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority and the Swiss National Bank made announcements early Monday morning relating to the acquisition. The Swiss National Bank will provide liquidity assistance to support the acquisition.

Credit Suisse's operations in Hong Kong comprise a branch supervised by the HKMA and two licensed corporations supervised by the SFC.

"All of them will open for business today as usual," said the HKMA in a statement, adding that "customers can continue to access their deposits with the branch and trading services provided by Credit Suisse for Hong Kong's stock and derivatives markets."

The Hong Kong banking sector is resilient with strong capital and liquidity positions, the regulator said, noting that the exposures of the local banking sector to Credit Suisse are insignificant.

The total assets of Credit Suisse AG's Hong Kong branch amounted to about 100 billion Hong Kong dollars (about 12.7 billion U.S. dollars), representing less than 0.5 percent of the total assets of the Hong Kong banking sector, according to the HKMA.