Singapore Won’t Feast on Hong Kong’s Fund Famine

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The two archrivals of Asian finance have competed so intensely for so long that it’s impossible to believe that Hong Kong’s fading autonomy and the resumption of anti-government protests isn’t filling Singapore with even a little bit of schadenfreude.

It was a surprise, therefore, to see the Monetary Authority of Singapore rebut news reports that there had been large flows of deposits from Hong Kong. The MAS was responding to data that showed a near-fourfold jump in one corner of the Singapore banking system’s foreign-currency deposits over the past year:

The central bank has a valid objection. The above chart only shows foreign-currency deposits in domestic banking units (DBUs). Include deposits in the the Asian currency units (ACUs), a fancy name for a different set of ledgers that the same banks use for their international business, and the fourfold growth turns out to be a 20% increase, to S$781 billion ($564 billion). Not exactly a deluge, though perhaps more than a puddle of rainwater on Singapore’s Orchard Road:

There are plenty of reasons why deposits are rising, and not just in Singapore. Central banks everywhere are flooding lenders with liquidity to ease the pain of the coronavirus pandemic. Governments are putting money into people’s accounts, while cautious firms are stuffing theirs by drawing on previously unused working-capital lines.

Besides, if deposits are fleeing Hong Kong, then banks in the territory must be feeling the pinch? That doesn’t seem to be the case:

It was only in late May that China said that it would impose a national security law in Hong Kong. April data may not be capturing the gloom about Hong Kong’s future. Still, the immediate challenge for the special administrative region is capital inflows, which are forcing the monetary authority to buy billions of U.S. dollars to prevent the Hong Kong dollar from strengthening beyond 7.75, the outer boundary of the 7.75-7.85 range in which it is allowed to trade against the greenback.

Money is pouring in because Hong Kong dollar interest rates are higher than U.S. dollar rates, and also because JD.com Inc., China’s No. 2 online retailer, is selling shares in the city in what’s likely to be the world’s second-biggest initial public offering this year.

A few mainland companies that no longer feel welcome in U.S. capital markets won’t be Hong Kong’s ticket to perennial preeminence. However, if the territory does bleed deposits, will Singapore want them? The two-ledger system, the reason for confusion about capital inflows, has its roots in the rivalry.

In 1968, when founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew decided to turn his tin- and rubber-exporting port into an international financial center, he had no real advantage over Hong Kong, then a British colony. But the devaluation of the pound in 1967 created demand for dollars in Asia, and Singapore grabbed the chance with the help of Dick van Oenen, a Dutch currency trader at Bank of America. Hong Kong, reluctant to admit new banks, took almost a decade to catch up. It was hesitant initially to host an offshore finance hub because those, like casinos, are best left to places that don’t have much other activity to protect. Singapore insulated its domestic economy from instability thanks to the different domestic and international ledger units, which demarcated banks’ high-stakes global commerce from their more humdrum local franchise.

For five years now, authorities have been planning to end the divide, and in January parliament approved the merger of the two accounts. Since regulatory scrutiny of financial intermediaries has gone up in all the major economies from which Singapore hosts its foreign banks, there’s little point in continuing with a dual-track system. Even so, this chart should give the authorities pause:

From roughly similar levels in 1991, deposits in Singapore — across both the ledgers, and including all currencies — have risen to $1 trillion, while Hong Kong’s have exploded to $1.8 trillion because of its outsize role in securing capital for Chinese firms.

Singapore may have the competence and confidence to ensure that banks can backstop their IOUs, with or without help from their home countries. But will the regulators be comfortable if the state investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte. — the largest shareholder of both London-based Standard Chartered Plc and homegrown DBS Group Holdings Ltd.— sees value in combining the two banks, an idea that’s been doing the rounds for the better part of two decades, though never seriously entertained?

Such a merger would give Singapore an institution at least half as big by deposit size as HSBC Holdings Plc, the gorilla of Hong Kong banking:

But size isn’t everything. Deposits come from loans, and too much credit causes “financialization.” It’s a term economists use to describe situations in which a society sacrifices other priorities — such as manufacturing competitiveness, affordable housing and less leveraged firms — for a mirage of affluence.

Singapore’s planners know that unlike London, New York or Hong Kong, which sits at the mouth of China’s planned Greater Bay Area, their island nation doesn’t have a hinterland to accommodate the losers of financialization.

Orbigood, a Singaporean exclamation for others getting their comeuppance, is best kept for its rival’s cramped housing and noxious air. Singapore wouldn’t really want deposits to rush in from Hong Kong. It might do more harm than good.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies and financial services. He previously was a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. He has also worked for the Straits Times, ET NOW and Bloomberg News.

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