(Bloomberg) — Hong Kong’s banks will suspend operations at one in every four branches in the city after a number of employees were infected with Covid, the South China Morning Post reported.
HSBC Holdings Plc, Standard Chartered and Bank of China and another 13 major lenders will close a total of 276 branches, the South China Morning Post reported. The closures started last week and will continue Monday, according to the newspaper.
The move is a precautionary measure to “safeguard the health and safety of the bank’s employees and customers, while balancing the need to ensure normal banking services to the community,” an unidentified HSBC spokesman told the Post. Customers are advised to “take advantage” of HSBC’s digital banking services and automatic teller machines, the newspaper cited the spokesman as saying.
The latest outbreak in Hong Kong, its biggest ever, comes after months of no community transmission, and is straining health-care resources and threatening Hong Kong’s Covid Zero strategy. Officials are set to meet with mainland authorities this weekend to request urgent help after the city posted more than 1,000 daily cases for the first time on Wednesday.
This isn’t the first time banks operating in the city have chosen to close amid a worsening covid outbreak in the Asian financial center. Last March, HSBC closed its main branch after three people working in the building tested positive for Covid-19.
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