Macao's banking system remains "sound": monetary authority

Submitted by admin on Sat, 10/25/2008 - 13:07

MACAO, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- After a major local bank was allegedly caught in an operational problem, the Monetary Authority of Macao Special Administration Region (SAR) Friday claimed that the SAR's banking system remains "sound and robust".


The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (MA) announced on Friday that, after consultation with the HKSAR's Financial Secretary (FS), it decided to revoke the appointment of the manager for Delta Asia Credit Limited (DAC) and even proposed the revocation of DAC's authorization as a deposit-taking company in Hong Kong.

DAC is a deposit taking subsidiary of Delta Asia Financial Group, a banking and financial services group encompassing the territories of Macao and Hong Kong. Banco Delta Asia S.A.R.L., (BDA) is the Group's banking arm in Macao.

"These measures are taken in accordance with the rules and regulations of Hong Kong and only applied to DAC which was incorporated in Hong Kong," the Macao Monetary Authority said, adding that the Macao SAR government has committed to giving full protection for all customer deposits held with banks in Macao, andproviding liquidity and even capital support to banks if such needarises.

According to the statement from the HKMA, DAC may appeal to the chief executive of HKSAR in Council against the MA's proposed revocation of its authorization, and, in the meantime, "DAC remains a deposit-taking company authorized under the Ordinance but it is subject to certain restrictions imposed on it by the MA under section 52 (1)(A) of the Ordinance, including the prohibition from taking any deposits."

DAC is part of the Delta Asia Financial Group and the incident would not affect the operation of BDA, which was "running normally", said Tam Pak Yuen, the Macao SAR's secretary of economy and finance, on the sideline of a public function on Friday.

He stressed that the SAR government has not considered taking over the management of BDA.

As for the local economy on the whole, Tam noted that the global financial turmoil had affected Macao and its economy showed signs of slowing down in recent months.

He added that China's central government has been paying much attention to Macao's social and economic development, and that he believed the central government would consider Macao's situation and continue to support Macao's development.