The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) published today the conclusions on the public consultation on the proposal to rename Hong Kong’s virtual banks.

The HKMA received a total of 26 submissions from various parties including industry/professional associations, virtual banks and members of the public in the consultation. The respondents were broadly supportive of the proposal, and the majority of them agreed with the proposed new name “Digital Bank”.

The HKMA will embark on the amendments to the Guideline on Authorization of Virtual Banks to effect the new name “Digital Bank” shortly.

All institutional respondents and most individual respondents supported the proposal to rename “Virtual Bank (虛擬銀行)”, asserting that the term no longer reflects the evolving nature of the use of financial technologies and banking practices of virtual banks. Some of them considered that the proposed renaming would align with global trends and that the word “virtual” could imply a lack of real financial activities or high risk behaviours.

However, a few individual respondents cautioned against renaming, opining that the proposed renaming might confuse members of the public as they are familiar with the term “Virtual Bank (虛擬銀行)” and some incumbent banks have been referring themselves or their online banking businesses as “digital bank” or “digital banking business”.