Banks rush in where angels fear to tread

• 20 April 2018
• 0 comments

In an, hopefully, unprecedented and unacceptable manner the mega bank HSBC have openly interfered with a national general election. How?

The bank issued a public statement that if the opposition win the general election due to be held in Malaysia on 9 May that country’s currency might suffer a drop in value. Some,largely specious, reasons were offered in support of the bank’s view.

While there is nothing objectionable in a bank publishing its management’s view on possible future events the timing of this statement can only be viewed with suspicion. Had the bank chosen to make its view known to those of its customers who might be affected by a Malaysian election result that could have been acceptable; if unwise.

But to go public with such a statement can only be seen as unacceptable interference in the coming election and openly in support of mega criminal Najib Razak.

World wide banks have many sources of intelligence open to them. In this case they must have seen the repeated statements by the US Department of Justice and, very recently, by US Attorney General Sessions about kleptocracy in Malaysia and they cannot have been unaware that the kleptocrats included current Malaysian Prime Minister Najib.

Why then give overt support to a mega criminal known to the bank as such? Many possible explanations could suggest themselves but it will be better if the bank itself issues a full explanatory statement.

One wonders if this mega bank is sufficiently informed about the election to know that it is very probable that  PH will win it. What kind of relationship does the bank’s management envisage having with a PH administration?