How does the Deposit Protection Scheme (DPS) work?
Bank failure is rare in Hong Kong. In case a Scheme member fails and your deposits are eligible for protection, the DPS will automatically compensate you up to the protection limit of HK$800,000.
What is covered by the DPS?
Most of the commonly placed deposits with Scheme members are protected!
- Deposits in savings accounts
- Deposits in current accounts
- Time deposits with a maturity not exceeding five years
- Deposits denominated in Hong Kong dollars, renminbi or other currencies
- Deposits in personal, joint* and company accounts
- Secured deposits
*Holders of a joint account are deemed to have an equal share in the affected deposits.
Beware that the following products are not protected by the DPS!
- Offshore deposits (e.g. deposits placed with non-Hong Kong offices of a Scheme member)
- Structured deposits (e.g. foreign currency linked deposits and equity linked deposits)
- Bearer certificates of deposit
- Time deposits with a maturity longer than five years
- Non-deposit products (such as bonds, stocks, warrants, mutual funds, unit trusts, insurance policies and virtual assets)
- Stored value facilities
Other key features of the DPS
- Target time frame for making full compensation payment to affected depositors is within seven days in most cases in the event of failure of a Scheme member.
- DPS Fund with a target fund size of 0.25% of the total amount of protected deposits is built up through the collection of contributions from Scheme members.
- Depositors having pre-existing protected deposits with two or more Scheme members involved in a merger or acquisition will have an additional coverage of up to HK$800,000 for their protected deposits transferred from each of the original Scheme member(s) for a limited period of time.
