Hong Kong's banks, blindsided by rising funding costs due to the city's costly defense of its currency peg, are clamping down on popular fixed-rate mortgages.
Bank of East Asia Ltd. is no longer accepting applications for these home loans "due to recent movements in interest rates," the lender said in an emailed reply on Friday, more than two months before it had originally planned to end the program.
Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (Asia) Ltd. will stop from May 1. Bigger rivals HSBC Holdings Plc and BOC Hong Kong (Holdings) Ltd. stopped offering fixed-rate mortgages last month.