Hang Seng China hits new growth heights in 2019

Hang Seng Bank (China) Limited achieved historical growth in 2019 with operating income and net profit growth hitting new heights, according to its annual results announced on Friday.

It is also the first locally incorporated foreign bank to publicly announce annual results.

Its operating income and net profit increased by 22 percent and 149 percent year-on-year respectively, pushing its total assets up by 15 percent compared with the end of the previous year.

Cross-border financial exchanges with its parent bank Hang Seng Bank have been one of the bank's major growth drivers. As of the end of 2019, the revenue contributed by cross-border joint customers accounted for 84 percent of the total revenue to its commercial banking.

Song Yuesheng, vice-chairman and chief executive of Hang Seng China, said "we promote the advantage of closer cross-border exchanges for our business and adhere to innovation to lead development."

In 2020, the senior executive expects the bank to continue to leverage core competitiveness, foster new strategy and empower the real economy in China.

Facing the novel coronavirus outbreak, the bank launched a number of measures to help enterprises in the nation to fight against the epidemic, including building a "green channel" for loan approval to speed up the processing of credit approval related to the disease prevention and waiving all fees for remittances and bank acceptance bills.

It also cut a total of about 10 million yuan of interest on corporate customers in industries affected by the infection.