Complaints Against Debt Collection Agents Employed by Authorized Institutions

Our Ref: B1/1C B9/67C 7 September 2023 The Chief Executive All Authorized Institutions Dear Sir/Madam, Complaints Against Debt Collection Agents Employed by Authorized Institutions I write to inform you of the results of the industry survey on complaints against debt collection agents (DCAs) employed by authorized institutions (AIs) for the first half of 2023. During the reporting period, 32 AIs used the services of DCAs and assigned 414,755 accounts to 20 DCAs. A total of 10 complaints against 5 DCAs were received by 4 AIs (compared with 19 complaints against 7 DCAs received by 10 AIs in H2 2022). The incidence of complaints per 1,000 accounts assigned has decreased from an average of 0.04 in H2 2022 to 0.02 in H1 2023. No complaints were lodged by unrelated third parties. Please see Annex for details. No instance of a breach of the Code of Banking Practice was reported in H1 2023. Yours faithfully, Alan Au Executive Director (Banking Conduct) Encl. c.c. The Chairperson, Hong Kong Association of Banks The Chairperson, The DTC Association Secretary, Code of Banking Practice Committee (Attn: Ms Alieza Chan – HKAB) Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury (Attn: Mr Justin To)

Annex Survey on DCA complaints received by AIs – H1/2023 Table 1: Number of AIs using DCA services H1/2023 H2/2022∗ H1/2022 H2/2021 H1/2021 AIs receiving DCA complaints 4 10 10 8 9 AIs receiving no DCA complaints 28 22 23 25 21 Total 32 32 33 33 30 Table 2: Number of DCAs employed by AIs H1/2023 H2/2022 H1/2022 H2/2021 H1/2021 AIs employing 1 – 5 DCAs 30 30 31 30 26 AIs employing 6 – 10 DCAs 2 3 4 AIs employing 11 – 15 DCAs 0 Total 32 32 33 33 30 Table 3: Incidence of DCA complaints H1/2023 H2/2022* H1/2022 H2/2021 H1/2021 DCA complaints received (A) 10 19 20 21 25 Accounts assigned (B) 414,755 433,323 414,996 394,196 400,624 Incidence of complaints per 1,000 accounts (C) = (A) / (B) x 1,000 0.02 0.04 0.05 0.05 0.06 Table 4: Status of complainants H1/2023 H2/2022* H1/2022 H2/2021 H1/2021 Debtors 10 15 16 19 20 Referees 0 Family members/friends 0 1 1 0 1 Unrelated third parties 0 3 3 2 4 Total 10 19 20 21 25

Note (∗): Figures for H2 2022 have been revised to reflect updated figures reported by AIs.