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Following is the speech by the Acting Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Ms Julia Leung, in moving the Motion to amend sections 10 and 15 of the Amendment Rules to the Deposit Protection Scheme (Representation on Scheme Membership and Protection of Financial Products under Scheme) (Amendment) Rules 2010 (Amendment Rules) in the Legislative Council today (November 17):
President,
I move to amend the Deposit Protection Scheme (Representation on Scheme Membership and Protection of Financial Products under Scheme) (Amendment) Rules 2010, as printed in the paper circulated to Members.
In the light of the relevant developments in international and local financial markets since the outbreak of the global financial crisis, and the experience gained from operating the Deposit Protection Scheme (DPS Scheme) since 2006, the Hong Kong Deposit Protection Board (the Board) completed a review of the DPS Scheme in 2009. One of the proposals concluded from the review is to strengthen the representation made by DPS Scheme members regarding their Scheme membership status and the protection status of their financial products. The Board tabled the Amendment Rules at the Legislative Council for negative vetting on October 20, 2010. A subcommittee was then formed to scrutinise the Amendment Rules (the Subcommittee). The Subcommittee has completed the scrutiny work and indicated support to the Amendment Rules. I would like to express my wholehearted gratitude to Hon Chan Kam-lam, Chairman of the Subcommittee, and other Subcommittee members for their invaluable views expressed during the course of scrutiny.
In response to the proposals made by the Subcommittee during the scrutiny, we propose to amend to section 15 of the Amendment Rules which adds section 7A to the Deposit Protection Scheme (Representation on Scheme Membership and Protection of Financial Products under Scheme) Rules (Representation Rules). Section 7A provides that a DPS Scheme member is required to reply within a specified time limit to a request by a person holding a financial product offered by the Scheme member for confirmation as to whether the financial product is protected by the DPS Scheme. The purpose of the amendments is to address the proposal of the Subcommittee to shorten the time limit for Scheme members to respond to the request, in the case of an oral reply, from within five business days to within three business days after the date on which the request is received and, in the case of a written reply, from within ten business days to within seven business days after the date on which the request is received.
In addition, we propose to make a technical amendment by adding sub-section 2A to section 10 of the Amendment Rules in order to replace "the commencement of these Rules" by "September 25, 2006" in section 6(4)(b)(i) of the Representation Rules. The proposed amendment is in line with relevant provisions in the Amendment Rules.
President, the abovementioned amendments have been submitted to the Subcommittee for scrutiny and Members have raised no objection. The Hong Kong Association of Banks (HKAB) has also been informed of the amendments for shortening time limit for responding to enquiries. I hereby move the relevant amendments.
Thank you.
Ends/Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Issued at HKT 16:01
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