Bitcoin Forum

Thousands gathered in downtown Hong Kong on Monday night for a rally to condemn a police crackdown on a major fundraising platform for anti-government protesters and to call for sanctions against HSBC, which shut down its account earlier.

Before the authorised rally began at 7pm in Central, there were minor scuffles between protesters and riot police at a nearby pedestrian underpass, when officers checked booths distributing masks to participants. As police left the scene, they were verbally abused by protesters.
The organiser estimated 45,000 joined the assembly in Edinburgh Place, near the bank’s Hong Kong headquarters. Police put the turnout at 3,300.

Last Thursday, police froze about HK$70 million (US$9 million) raised by activists via the Spark Alliance platform to support protesters and arrested four people for money laundering.

Officers suspect the funds were used for personal gain and other illegal activities, including participation rewards for young demonstrators.
But Sunny Cheung, one of the organisers of Monday’s “Sparking the World Afire Assembly” and spokesman for a group called Hong Kong Higher Education International Affairs Delegation, said the police’s action was arbitrary.

“This is actually detrimental to Hong Kong’s status as an international financial hub,” Cheung said. “We condemn the government for using politics to override the economy.”

The organiser also called for action against HSBC, which closed Spark Alliance’s bank account in November. Cheung urged the US government and businesses to sanction or boycott the banking giant.

Earlier, in a rare statement and without stating names, the city’s largest bank said the decision to shut down the account was in accordance with international regulatory standards.

Ventus Lau Wing-hong, another of the assembly’s organisers, said freezing the bank account would not lessen support for the protests.
“For any of us who have donated to Spark Alliance, we could now be labelled as criminals,” Lau said. “But that does not scare us.”

He said Spark Alliance was formed out of a belief for revolution, to support frontline protesters and go against the tyranny of political and business pressure.

A 52-year-old saleswoman, who gave her name as Catherine, said she had donated a few hundred dollars to Spark Alliance when she joined peaceful gatherings in the past.

“The money I donated came from my own hard work at my job, it’s not ‘black money’ at all,” she said. “Police are just using any excuse to cut off support for the young protesters.”

A clerk in her thirties, who only gave her surname as Cheung, made a one-off donation of about HK$1,000 to Spark Alliance via an interbank online payment system.

“Even though I made my donation through the bank, I still have a thin line of trust that my account activities will not be handed over to police,” she said.

Cheung, who holds an HSBC account, said she was considering switching to another bank.

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3043325/thousands-join-hong-kong-rally-condemn-crackdown

HSBC has no choice but to comply with what China government wants! Freezing an account of a consumer is not a decision what banks love to take! Because they can't use that fund but still have to maintain an account number in their books. That's a loss for the banks.

I believe HSBC is just trying to balance out things for themselves and hence they are forced to freeze accounts of the protesters in the name of illegal usage of banking channel. HSBC is trying not to make the Dragon angry!

This is one of such scenarios where we understand the need of cryptos in naked eye!

Come to crypto, and we can totally forget about all bank, whether it’s biggest international bank or biggest national bank or shadow banking or Paypal or alipay, any bank that you need to trust a human to manage your fund is itself full of flaws, one should never even trust anyone to safeguard your fund except yourself, it would take millions of hard earned cash loss then human would begin to learn to regret.

Banks are left with no choice. They run on fiat, under the government. Non-compliance would hurt their business more. They can't pretty much do anything, since the government politicians and law enforcement could always use their power at their will. They also aren't able to support cryptocurrencies either since it is also restricted by the government.

HSBC is not in control of such, articles also states that the account closing was conducted by the police, and not voluntarily conducted by HSBC themselves.

HSBC is not in control of such, articles also states that the account closing was conducted by the police, and not voluntarily conducted by HSBC themselves.

I believe the protesters are fighting for their right by all means but i don't see any reason why they have to blame HSBC for closing the Spark Alliance’s bank account because they have to abide with the rules and regulations of the countries they operate in but The police accusing the group of money laundering and frozen of account was arbitrary action and i believed they were indeed trying  to cut off support for the protesters as said by the lady Catherine.

I don't know why some people think HSBC are to be blame when we both know the Chinese is run through centralized system which is also one of the main reason of the protest in the first place.

@Broly46 it’s only a matter of time before people realise the need to dump their banks, and adopt crypto’s for their daily transactions and had those protestors been smart and used crypto’s their funds would have been secured.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/spotlight-on-bitcoin-as-hsbc-shuts-hong-kong-protest-linked-account

Come to crypto, and we can totally forget about all bank, whether it’s biggest international bank or biggest national bank or shadow banking or Paypal or alipay, any bank that you need to trust a human to manage your fund is itself full of flaws, one should never even trust anyone to safeguard your fund except yourself, it would take millions of hard earned cash loss then human would begin to learn to regret.

HSBC has no choice but to comply with what China government wants! Freezing an account of a consumer is not a decision what banks love to take! Because they can't use that fund but still have to maintain an account number in their books. That's a loss for the banks.

I believe HSBC is just trying to balance out things for themselves and hence they are forced to freeze accounts of the protesters in the name of illegal usage of banking channel. HSBC is trying not to make the Dragon angry!

This is one of such scenarios where we understand the need of cryptos in naked eye!

The head of HSBC Holdings Plc’s key China business resigned, the latest senior management change in a week that saw Europe’s largest lender oust its top executive.

Helen Wong announced her departure as head of Greater China in July to pursue another opportunity, and this is her last day at the bank, spokeswoman Maggie Cheung said Friday. Wong, one of the bank’s most senior women, had been in the role for about four years and worked at HSBC since 1992.

Her departure caps a week that started with the ouster of former Chief Executive Officer John Flint after just 18 months in the role, with the bank saying an “increasingly complex” environment of geopolitical tensions and risks to growth demanded new leadership.

How do you explain the following.

#1  Banks regularly laundering money for drug cartels contrary to laws made by governments.
#2  Banks taking action, punishing entire nations like the UK for their pro brexit stance.
#3  Banks closing the accounts of US workers in the adult entertainment industry.

There are countless examples of banks implementing policies which go directly against the national interest.

Banks are left with no choice. They run on fiat, under the government. Non-compliance would hurt their business more. They can't pretty much do anything, since the government politicians and law enforcement could always use their power at their will. They also aren't able to support cryptocurrencies either since it is also restricted by the government.

HSBC is not in control of such, articles also states that the account closing was conducted by the police, and not voluntarily conducted by HSBC themselves.

Hong Kong protest groups were accused of money laundering. People were arrested and accounts were shut down. Perhaps similar to crypto being described as a "safe haven for criminals and money launderers" whenever the mainstream media needs to create generic content to push a negative publicity campaign against it.

HSBC is a British bank from headquarters if I am not wrong. So, that means they are not a Hong Kong bank like the name suggests nor they are a Chinese bank.

The faster world banks fall in the form in which they are, the faster the digital future will come. I'm not sure everyone will like it, but it will definitely swing each of us

HSBC is a British bank from headquarters if I am not wrong. So, that means they are not a Hong Kong bank like the name suggests nor they are a Chinese bank. When you look at it as a British bank that has nothing to do with the governmental approach of china or the protests of Hong Kong people you can realize why HSBC is favoring the powerhouse here and not the protesters. It is obvious that bank wants to be sided with China who would be making them more profits and not care about the small time protesters that may not help them at all in the future.

I can understand the naming of the bank should give them some loyalty but this is a bank we are talking about and they will always favor the party that will make them more profits over humanity any time they are tasked such a decision.

International banking cartels would appear to universally oppose populist independence movements like brexit and hong kong. Banks appear to side with china and the left politically. I hope this information is useful in helping people to decipher a motive behind certain policies and angles being supported.

Even if banks fall (which I don't believe they will), something else will replace them and that something else might very well be even worse than the current banks you want to see fall. In that regard, be careful what you wish for, because it can back fire on you and everyone else very hard.

Everyone saying banks have "no choice" in this matter. They must obey the state & government.

How do you explain the following.

#1  Banks regularly laundering money for drug cartels contrary to laws made by governments.
#2  Banks taking action, punishing entire nations like the UK for their pro brexit stance.
#3  Banks closing the accounts of US workers in the adult entertainment industry.

There are countless examples of banks implementing policies which go directly against the national interest.

I think what people are missing is banks having their own agenda and blueprint for the future which they collectively coordinate and cooperate with the media and others to enforce.

The bottom line here is china promised hong kong autonomy. That's the agreement china made. Now china seeks to bring hong kong under its own iron curtain and it would appear that banks support this. Rather than acknowledging the sovereignty of hong kong as a self governing place.

To be fair with the HSBC bank, I don't think that any bank in any other country could have done anything different.

Let's assume a scenario in which there is a large violent anti-governmental protest in the United States against the killing of Qasem Soleimani. The protesters manages to raise $70 million, without the permission from the authorities. Now the authorities order the bank to freeze these funds. Do you think that the banks will be in a position to reject the directive from the authorities?

I am getting suspicious about this entire episode. $70 million is a huge amount of money. I have never heard about so much money being raised in any protest around the world.