Clearing Up the Acronyms: RTGS vs. CHATS

When discussing cross-bank transfers in Hong Kong, people frequently get bogged down in technical jargon.

Local interbank transfers generally fall into three main buckets: telegraphic transfers (TT), Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), and the Faster Payment System (FPS). Before comparing them directly, it is worth unpicking a fundamental point of confusion that trips up retail customers and junior bankers alike: the difference between RTGS and CHATS.

Put simply, Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) is not a single proprietary product, but a universal banking term for a specific type of real-time clearing infrastructure. Central banks around the globe run their own versions of RTGS; Japan, for instance, launched its system back in 2001.

CHATS — short for Clearing House Automated Transfer System — is merely the specific name Hong Kong gave to its local RTGS system.

The distinction is identical to public transport smart cards. London and Hong Kong both deploy RFID contactless technology across their transit networks, but London calls its system the Oyster card, while Hong Kong calls its version the Octopus card. Beneath the local branding, the underlying machinery is doing the exact same work.

Life Before RTGS: The Hidden Danger of “Daily Netting”

To appreciate why RTGS exists, one must look back at how commercial banks handled cross-bank movements before central real-time clearing engines were built. Historically, the financial sector relied entirely on a process called daily netting.

Imagine a client at Bank A wants to transfer ten dollars to a friend at Bank B. In the old days, Bank A would debit the sender’s account, send an electronic notification asking Bank B to credit the receiver, and log an informal credit note indicating that Bank A now owes Bank B ten dollars. Crucially, no actual cash or central bank reserves moved between the two institutions at that moment.

Throughout any given working day, thousands of these transactions zip back and forth across every bank in the city. Some clients transfer money from Bank A to Bank B, while others move funds in reverse. Under daily netting, banks simply kept track of these obligations on their internal balance sheets until the end of the day. Once trading closed, everyone calculated who owed what to whom on net, and settled only the remaining difference.

While this drastically reduced the volume of interbank fund movements during business hours, it harboured a terrifying structural threat known as counterparty risk. If a hypothetical Bank C suffered a sudden liquidity failure at 4:55 PM and could not settle its net debt, every other bank expecting payment from Bank C was suddenly left exposed. Because those banks had already credited their own retail clients earlier in the day, a single default could trigger a immediate domino effect across the entire financial system.

Enter the Central Clearing House

The solution to this systemic vulnerability was conceptually straightforward: force banks to stop extending informal end-of-day credit promises, and demand immediate, individual cash settlement for every single transfer in real time. That is precisely what RTGS does.

In Hong Kong, this central clearing engine is operated by Hong Kong Interbank Clearing Limited (HKICL), a private company jointly owned by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) — the city’s quasi-central bank — and the Hong Kong Association of Banks.

Hong Kong was remarkably early to this game, launching its local RTGS system in December 1996, more than four years ahead of Japan. Originally built for Hong Kong dollars, the platform was progressively upgraded to process US dollars in 2000, Euros in 2003, and Offshore RMB in 2007. The HKMA regularly points out that the system has operated for over a quarter of a century without a single system-wide glitch, making it one of the most reliable interbank clearing setups anywhere in the world.

The Silent Workhorse Behind Everyday Financial Life

Prior to the launch of the consumer-facing Faster Payment System (FPS) in 2018, virtually every interbank transaction in Hong Kong relied on RTGS behind the scenes. It remains the core arterial highway of the city’s financial plumbing.

When a listed firm uses Bank A to distribute stock dividends to retail investors holding accounts at Bank B, or when bulk paper cheques clear overnight, RTGS processes the underlying balance adjustments. The exact same engine triggers whenever you swipe a debit card via EPS at a local shop or withdraw cash from a rival bank’s ATM. Even though the end-user sees a simple retail screen, the real-time liquidity transfer between the two institutions is happening via RTGS.

Furthermore, RTGS supports Payment-versus-Payment (PvP) foreign exchange settlement. If Bank A agrees to sell Hong Kong dollars to buy US dollars from Bank B, RTGS executes both legs of the currency exchange simultaneously. Neither side receives their currency until the other side settles, eliminating the risk of one party defaulting halfway through a trade.

The Intraday Cash Strain (and How the HKMA Fixes It)

The main operational trade-off of an RTGS system is that it demands exceptionally high intraday liquidity from participating banks.

Under old-fashioned daily netting, a bank only needed enough spare cash to cover its net deficit at 5:00 PM. Under RTGS, money moves out instantly with every single transaction. Because cash inflows and outflows fluctuate wildly throughout the day, a perfectly solvent bank can easily run into a temporary cash shortage at 2:00 PM simply due to awkward timing.

To prevent the interbank payment network from grinding to a halt during these temporary intraday dips, the HKMA introduced an interest-free repurchase (repo) facility. Commercial banks can pledge their Exchange Fund Bills and Notes to the central bank during the day to borrow instant intraday liquidity, returning the cash before the close of business.

So Why Did We Need FPS in 2018?

To summarise: Hong Kong’s RTGS (or CHATS) is a highly sophisticated, multi-currency settlement system designed for absolute security and instant finality. It quietly handles billions in institutional settlements, cheque clearing, and cross-bank ATM transactions without breaking a sweat.

Which brings us to an obvious question: if Hong Kong already possessed a world-class, multi-currency, real-time settlement engine that had run flawlessly since 1996, why on earth did the HKMA feel compelled to build the Faster Payment System (FPS) in 2018?

That shift says a great deal about how retail expectations began to outpace traditional corporate banking design — and it is precisely what we will unpack in the next entry.

My name is Wallace Tin, a bank worker witnessing the history of banking development in beautiful Hong Kong since 2017.

I am translating my banking articles from Cantonese to English on weekly basis. If you like my work, please subscribe, highlight, comment and share.

You may also find the latest articles by becoming my patron at https://www.patreon.com/watin.

What is RTGS, Simply Put? was originally published in 華田銀行 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

TL;DR: For many older passbook customers, a bank account is an abstract concept. Only the ink printed on paper feels real. Until the passbook is updated, the money hasn’t arrived, and the transaction isn’t truly complete.

Hang Seng’s new ‘e-Passbook Card’ is clever not because it tries to teach elderly customers how to use e-Banking, but because it replicates a deeply ingrained physical habit. By using an NFC card tap to simulate the act of updating a passbook, the bank has turned digital transformation into a form of psychological reassurance.

How does this deliberate piece of “functional regression” solve the deepest security anxieties of elderly banking clients?

—

On one side of the street, HSBC is making a grand push to urge customers to consolidate their passbook accounts, using tactics like higher counter fees for passbook updates to nudge people towards saying goodbye to physical paper. On the other side, Hang Seng is doing the exact opposite. They have launched a product called the “e-Passbook Card”, attempting to use digital passbook emulation to soothe older clients who simply cannot sleep at night without their physical booklet.

This product is essentially a 2026 digital remaster of the classic 1993 “Uncle Smart” self-service terminal.

“Uncle Smart, please tell me how much money I have left to spend?”

The only real difference is that the massive terminal from back in the day has been shrunk down to fit on the iPhone in your hand.

When Hang Seng is aggressively pushing a fully-featured e-Banking platform, championing a Mobile First strategy, and working to eliminate offline touchpoints altogether, introducing a intentionally crippled, sub-optimal product — one that requires a physical visit to a branch to bind, and depends on a physical card to operate — seems logically contradictory on the surface.

Look closer at the product design. The e-Passbook Card is configured so that it can only view HKD Passbook Savings Accounts. It cannot view any other accounts held with the bank. This restriction is certainly not a technical bottleneck; it is a carefully calculated design choice meant to isolate features.

What the bank is trying to solve here is not a technology problem. It is an operational tug-of-war over habit, inertia, and psychological defense mechanisms.

The “e-Passbook Card”: A “Sub-Optimal” Version of Mobile Banking

According to Hang Seng’s official site, to apply for the e-Passbook Card, a client must satisfy two conditions simultaneously:

1. Hold a personal HKD Passbook Savings Account.
2. Not currently be a Hang Seng Personal e-Banking customer.

So how does the e-Passbook Card actually work? A customer goes to a branch in person to link their mobile phone, after which they receive a paired physical “e-Passbook Card”. Whenever they want to check their account details, they open the Hang Seng Mobile App, tap the card against their phone via NFC, and instantly view their balance and transaction history.

The entire workflow maps directly onto the traditional passbook update routine. In the past, you inserted the passbook into a machine and waited for it to print. Now, you tap the card against the phone to fetch the data. Through the e-Passbook Card, users can only view their balance and transaction records, strictly limited to their passbook account. It does not support any fund transfers or transactional capabilities. However, the process requires no login credentials, no passwords, and no complex navigation. Just one card plus one paired smartphone, and you’re done.

In the eyes of a banker, the e-Passbook Card is still mobile banking, but a “sub-optimal” (or regressively simplified) version of it. Functionally, it offers far less than even the existing “Simple Mode” for seniors. Yet, it enables an exceptionally straightforward way to check balances, catering specifically to the single power journey of “updating the passbook.”

Why go to all this trouble? Because this ultra-watered-down version of e-Banking manages to achieve breakthroughs across three distinct dimensions: behavior, habit, and perceived risk. Let’s break them down one by one.

Updating the Passbook: A Sacred and Inviolable Ritual of “Transaction Finality”

To Gen-Z, updating a passbook is an incomprehensible ritual. In an era where everything is a digital number and schoolwork is done on iPads, why on earth would anyone need numbers printed onto physical paper for them to count?

For passbook customers, however, the physical booklet is not merely a record; it is a confirmation mechanism. Money deposited? Update the passbook. Rent received? Update the passbook. A bank account in the cloud feels abstract and unreal; the booklet in hand is tangible truth. Until that line of text is stamped onto the page, the funds haven’t truly arrived, and the transaction remains incomplete.

What the e-Passbook Card does is migrate this physical act onto a smartphone, while preserving the core sensory element of “updating.” That NFC card acts like a miniaturised passbook. The tapping motion mirrors inserting the booklet into a machine, and once the data pops up on screen, the transaction feels officially concluded.

The e-Passbook Card does not just display information; it replicates a deeply ingrained physical habit. That is where its genius lies.

Instead of Chasing “Full Functionality”, Satisfy “Micro-Needs”

Hang Seng has over a million passbook customers, many of whom have used this exact system for over thirty years.

Back when I first joined the banking industry, the Digital Team consisted of just a handful of people, and e-Banking capabilities were extremely limited. Customers refusing to switch made complete sense back then. But by 2026, the only remaining reasons for avoiding e-Banking are habit and fear.

Habits are notoriously difficult to break because switching always incurs a friction cost. Asking someone who relies on tactile reassurance to suddenly learn user IDs, passwords, 2FA, device binding, and complex UI navigation is an unnecessarily painful learning curve.

If the bank’s sole operational goal is to digitise the passbook updating process, why not digitise only that specific process? Just three simple steps: Open App, Tap Card, Display. No logins, no passwords, no 2FA, no device pairing headaches, and no overwhelming features.

It reminds me of a project I worked on many years ago involving cash-withdrawal-only ATMs. The machine did less, but for customers who simply wanted to draw cash, that radical simplicity delivered the ultimate user experience.

Security: A Psychological Placebo Built on 1FA

The e-Passbook Card also addresses the deep-seated fears older generations have regarding digital security.

Putting ourselves in their shoes, while you and I might see no security issues with e-Banking — and might even argue that hoarding cash at home is far riskier — countless surveys consistently show that security concerns remain the primary barrier preventing seniors from adopting digital channels. When you push an elderly customer onto a full-featured e-Banking platform, they feel exposed to a dangerous digital environment where someone could drain their life savings at any moment.

By restricting the e-Passbook Card strictly to read-only access, locking it to a one-card-one-device pair, and stripping away even the basic transfer button, the bank compresses perceived risk down to a level elderly customers can comfortably accept.

What’s fascinating is that this “one card, one device” setup is technically just single-factor authentication (what you have × 2). From a strict cybersecurity standpoint, it is nowhere near as secure as “Password + Mobile Phone” (what you know + have) or “Face ID + Mobile Phone” (what you are + have) 2FA setups. If a thief steals your bag containing both the phone and the card, they can access the view-only portal.

Yet to an older customer, the inability to move money out of the account is the highest form of firewall. They don’t demand absolute cryptographic security; they want the psychological safety of knowing they cannot accidentally press the wrong button and lose their money. The e-Passbook Card delivers that psychological comfort perfectly.

“e-Passbook Card”: A Textbook Case of Functional Regression

The e-Passbook Card makes for a fascinating case study. It is not an under-engineered mobile banking app, but a deliberately restricted, laser-focused product designed to tackle the specific behavioral anxieties of a targeted demographic. This strategy — accepting a “functional regression” to achieve “complete psychological buy-in” — is something worthy of being written into product strategy textbooks.

As for whether customers will adopt it, I am quite optimistic. Provided the marketing is clear, branch staff are given adequate incentives, and frontline team members put in the effort, this digital passbook card stands a very strong chance of becoming Hang Seng’s secret weapon for retaining CASA deposits.

Hang Seng has stated that they currently have no plans to decommission physical passbook update machines. But once everyone has one of these cards in hand, phasing out the old machines will ultimately just be a matter of time.

My name is Wallace Tin, a bank worker witnessing the history of banking development in beautiful Hong Kong since 2017.

I am translating my banking articles from Cantonese to English on weekly basis. If you like my work, please subscribe, highlight, comment and share.

You may also find the latest articles by becoming my patron at https://www.patreon.com/watin.

Hang Seng’s ‘e-Passbook Card’: A Psychological War Over the Ritual of Passbook Updating was originally published in 華田銀行 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Originally published on Patreon on 12 Feb 2023.

The arrival of virtual banks forced a fundamental reckoning in Hong Kong’s traditionally comfortable banking sector. One of the most visible changes occurred in June 2019, when HSBC finally blinked and announced it was scrapping the “minimum balance fee” for its Advance Banking tier and below — before casually killing off the Advance tier entirely the following year.

Within a mere eight days, the city’s other major players — Bank of China, Standard Chartered, Hang Seng, and Bank of East Asia — all predictably fell in line, sweeping the notoriously annoying low balance fee into the dustbin of history in one collective breath.

At the time, I described this as HSBC firing the opening salvo in the war against virtual banks. But has anyone ever stopped to wonder when exactly this low balance fee came into existence to begin with?

To understand that, we have to drag ourselves all the way back to the Interest Rate Agreement of 1964.

The 1960s Hong Kong: Bank Runs and Interest Rate Wars

The 1960s was an incredibly turbulent era for the local banking industry.

On 14 June 1961, Liu Chong Hing Bank fell victim to malicious rumours, sparking a massive bank run. It was only quelled when HSBC and Standard Chartered stepped in to rescue them — though the immense stress likely caused the founder, Liu Po-shan, to suffer a fatal stroke just a month later. This incident fired the starting gun for a decade defined by bank runs.

Naturally, there was no Deposit Protection Scheme back then, and depositors’ trust in banks, particularly local ones, was virtually non-existent. By early 1965, the panic had escalated. Ming Tak Bank and Canton Trust and Commercial Bank were forced to suspend operations following severe runs on their deposits.

The contagion rapidly spread to Hang Seng, Kwong On, Dao Heng, Wing Lung, and Far East Bank, climaxing in April when Hang Seng capitulated, selling a 51% controlling stake to HSBC for HK$51 million. From that day forward, Hang Seng simply became a member of the HSBC Group.

Faced with the existential threat of bank runs, one can imagine the limited playbook banks had. Aside from physically stacking boxes of gold bullion in their lobbies to calm the public, their only real defence was jacking up deposit interest rates to stem the bleeding, triggering an all-out rate war.

According to historical research by Fung Bong-yin (馮邦彥), many local banks in 1963 desperately hiked their one-year fixed deposit rates to over 10% per annum. Even 7-day call deposits — a relic similar to a current account but requiring a week’s notice to withdraw your cash — were yielding 6%. This vicious cycle of cutthroat competition caused the banks’ cost of funding to skyrocket, effectively accelerating their own demise.

Seeing this rate war spiral out of control following the Liu Chong Hing crisis, the Exchange Banks’ Association (the predecessor to today’s Hong Kong Association of Banks), led by — you guessed it — HSBC, stepped in to mediate.

The resolution was the implementation of the Interest Rate Agreement on 1 July 1964. The mechanics of this agreement functioned as a rigid, legally sanctioned cartel:

• All banks in Hong Kong were segregated into five distinct categories, ranging from foreign banks down to various tiers of local institutions.
• Foreign banks were capped at offering a 5% interest rate for a 12-month fixed deposit.
• Local banks were allowed to offer a slightly higher premium of up to 1.75% on top of that foreign bank limit, depending on their assigned tier.
• Call deposits were strictly capped at 4% across the board.

The enforcement mechanism for this cartel was brutally simple: any bank caught violating the agreement would be banned from using the Hong Kong Clearing House.

This clearing system, established back in 1923 and housed within HSBC, required all member banks to maintain a non-interest-bearing account for interbank settlements. Being locked out of this was the banking equivalent of excommunication, making the cost of breaking the rules far too severe for any institution to risk.

The Long Unwinding and the Birth of the Minimum Balance Fee

This regulatory band-aid from July 1964 ultimately failed to prevent the devastating bank runs of 1965. However, the Interest Rate Agreement did not die alongside those failed banks. Instead, it was continuously tweaked and refined, surviving the 1997 handover and remaining fully entrenched until it was finally abolished on 3 July 2001. That is a staggering 47-year run.

Through a modern lens, this arrangement was glaringly obvious price-fixing and a blatant antitrust violation. The first domino in its eventual demise was tipped over by the Consumer Council, initiating a phased exit that dragged on for seven exhausting years.

Following the Council’s recommendations in 1994, restrictions on fixed deposits of one month or longer were scrapped in 1995. It took another five years to remove the caps on deposits under seven days in 2000, and finally, the limits on savings and current accounts were abolished in July 2001, closing the chapter on the Interest Rate Agreement once and for all.

At the time, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), Joseph Yam, noted that banks widely anticipated this deregulation would intensify competition for deposits, driving up funding costs, squeezing net interest margins, and pushing up the cost of acquiring and retaining customers, thereby putting immense pressure on profitability. He pointedly added that the final phase of removing rate rules on savings and current accounts would trigger the most profound impact.

Unsurprisingly, the banks suffered in this newly liberated free market. Official HKMA data shows that the industry’s net interest margin shrank from 2.03% in 2001 to 1.68% by 2005. With the gap between lending and deposit rates compressing from both ends, banks had to find new ways to survive.

The immediate response after the complete abolition of the agreement was Standard Chartered firing the first shot in a new fee-based war, announcing a brand new minimum balance service fee of HK$100 for accounts maintaining an average balance of less than HK$10,000.

The Endless Pursuit of Revenue

According to reports from the Consumer Council’s Choice magazine, the number of banks levying a minimum balance fee surged from just two in 2001 to eighteen by 2006. The council also flagged a worrying trend of banks inventing other creative ways to extract revenue, such as dormant account fees, interest deductions for low balances, and calculating minimum balances separately for current and savings accounts.

Even prominent figures like Bernard Charnwut Chan wrote an op-ed after the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse titled ‘Scrapping the Interest Rate Agreement Planted the Bomb for Bank Hard-Selling.’

He accurately pointed out the direct causal link, noting that because banks had no choice but to compensate for dwindling lending profits, they forced their frontline staff to morph into aggressive salespeople pushing deposit schemes, investment products, and insurance to hit relentless monthly quotas.

So, when did the dreaded minimum balance fee actually begin?

Its roots lie deeply embedded in the 1960s bank runs that birthed the HSBC-led Interest Rate Agreement in 1964 — a cartel structure that took nearly five decades to dismantle by 2001.

Once thrown into open competition with violently shrinking net interest margins, banks had to aggressively hunt for new revenue and mercilessly slash costs. Pushing complex investment products, gutting branch networks, and slapping low-income customers with minimum balance fees were simply the inevitable byproducts of that transition.

Fast forward to the arrival of virtual banks, and HSBC — attempting to fend off fresh challengers while scoring cheap public relations points for financial inclusion — decided to kill the fee in 2019. The rest of the industry predictably followed, and the fee that annoyed retail customers for 18 years was essentially wiped out.

Are there still banks out there charging a minimum balance fee today? Yes, some still do, but we can simply chalk that up to differing business strategies.

And I just clearly don’t have the financial capacity to be their target demographic.

My name is Wallace Tin, a bank worker witnessing the history of banking development in beautiful Hong Kong since 2017.

I am translating my banking articles from Cantonese to English on weekly basis. If you like my work, please subscribe, highlight, comment and share.

You may also find the latest articles by becoming my patron at https://www.patreon.com/watin.

Earlier this year, HSBC became the first bank in Hong Kong to introduce the “iAM Smart” multi-factor authentication into its SME loan approval process. A company’s Authorised Signatory (AS) can now complete a commercial loan application by performing an additional identity verification step through “iAM Smart.”

For the average employee who hasn’t yet had the fortune of becoming a boss or top executive, this might just seem like an extra login method. Some might even ask, “Doesn’t the HSBC Business Express App already have facial recognition?”

But if you understand how Commercial Banking accounts operate, you’ll realize that the introduction of iAM Smart is not just a feature upgrade – it fixes a long-standing pain point in account operations.

In this issue, let’s talk about the identity authentication issues in Commercial Banking, as well as my expectations for iAM Smart becoming the ultimate “identity verification outsourcer.”

Retail Verifies the “Person”, Commercial Verifies the “Authority”

Most people’s understanding of banking comes from their Retail Banking experience: one account corresponds to one natural person. Logging in, transferring money, borrowing, and even bearing the consequences of pressing the wrong button – it’s all the same person. The core issue the bank needs to handle in verification is simply:

“Are you the account holder?”

Once the identity is confirmed, the bank executes the request.

Commercial Banking is quite different. The account belongs to a company, not any natural person. What the bank has to manage isn’t the authority of a single natural person, but a formal authorization structure submitted by the company. This structure has a specific term: a “mandate.”

(link here: https://www.business.hsbc.com.hk/-/media/library/business-hk/pdfs/en/cua128.pdf)

In the simplest terms, a mandate is a formal authorization instruction submitted to the bank when a company opens an account. This document clearly states who can operate the account on the company’s behalf, whether joint approval by two or more people is required, what each person’s approval limit is, and whether specific critical decisions must be handled at the director level.

All bank operations must be executed strictly according to the mandate. In other words, commercial banks don’t just verify “identity” – they verify “whether the identity matches their authorized power.” This difference inherently makes identity verification in commercial banking much more complex than in retail banking. Retail banking verifies the person, while commercial banking verifies legal representation.

And this is exactly where the problem arises: the person with the most authority to approve a loan is not necessarily the person who uses e-banking the most frequently.

The System’s Pain Point: High-Risk Approvals + Low-Frequency Users

When a company of a certain scale applies for a loan, the entire process is usually handled by several people. The finance department prepares the documents, the business department answers necessary business questions, and then it’s handed over to the Authorised Signatory (AS) designated by the mandate to make the formal application.

This AS is often a senior executive in the company. If they had already bound their mobile phone to the corporate account early on, just like a retail customer, everything would be easy to handle.

But if they don’t frequently log into internet banking for daily operations, haven’t bound their phone, and aren’t familiar with the banking app’s authorization settings – or if they’ve changed their phone number, got a new phone, or are on a long business trip – then things get troublesome.

Looking at HSBC’s current process, before the launch of iAM Smart, HSBC offered two verification methods: (i) HKID card + selfie, and (ii) mobile security key (MSK) or hard token.

Everyone can spot the problem here. Method (i) requires having your ID card on hand, taking a photo of the front, taking a photo of the back, and performing a facial scan – we’ve all experienced how cumbersome that can be. For method (ii), the AS must be an internet banking user and must have a bound mobile phone or be carrying a hard token with them.

Although the friction is high, this risk control measure is absolutely necessary. Loan approval is a high-risk commitment. Once a loan is approved, the bank might disburse funds immediately. If an identity is spoofed and the bank cannot prove it did everything possible to prevent this kind of 3rd party impersonation fraud, the bank is highly likely to bear the responsibility and the financial loss.

How can banks ensure it is truly that specific person at the highest-risk moment? iAM Smart is one of the ways forward.

iAM Smart — The Advantage of Outsourcing Identity Verification

HSBC didn’t introduce iAM Smart because the Business Express App lacks facial recognition capabilities, but rather to figure out if there’s a “more seamless” way for a non-app user to verify their identity.

As mentioned above, it’s highly impractical for banks to force every AS to become a fully-fledged internet banking user, download the app, complete device binding, and familiarize themselves with security settings. Let alone Commercial Banking, it’s impractical even in Private Banking – you can’t exactly expect a VIP client to log into e-banking themselves just to check their bank balance, right?

Therefore, banks changed their design approach, inserting a “step-up authentication” only at the moment of highest risk. The lowest-level execution of this is asking for a photo of the ID card plus a facial scan during the step-up. But a higher-level execution leverages an authentication system the user probably already has, using that app as a springboard. “If it trusts you, I trust you.”

What could this “existing authentication system” be? For HSBC Reward+, it’s HSBC’s retail banking app. Every time you log in, it bounces you to the retail banking app for verification, and then bounces you back to Reward+.

What about HSBC’s Business Express App? The retail banking app might still be the answer, because HSBC is huge. But what if it’s Dah Sing Bank? Or Shanghai Commercial Bank?

In that case, iAM Smart is the answer.

As a government-level digital identity platform, “iAM Smart” already has a broad user base. When a bank requires a selfie, facial recognition, and government identity confirmation at the exact moment of loan approval, it is essentially borrowing an existing, well-accepted identity channel.

For the user, it only requires a facial scan, without needing to pull out an ID card, photograph the front, and photograph the back – resulting in much lower friction. For the bank, no third-party organization has more credibility than the government, and no system has more experience connecting with external systems than iAM Smart.

This is exactly why iAM Smart, playing the role of an “identity verification outsourcer,” hits it off perfectly with banks.

The Potential of iAM Smart as the Ultimate “Identity Verification Outsourcer”

In the world of Commercial Banking, product design must consider not only the frequency and risk of transactions but also the identity of the user – a consideration that doesn’t exist in Retail Banking.

And when high-risk actions like loan approvals must be finally verified by an AS who might only log in a few times a year, identity verification cannot simply be designed around an “active user experience.”

The introduction of iAM Smart into SME loans is just a small beginning. In the future, can banks roll it out on a large scale to other verification processes?

For instance, does online account opening still need to rely on traditional document photography as its primary verification method? It reflects light, it often fails to recognize… could we just click iAM Smart, do a facial scan, and have it pre-fill all my information? Since the government recognizes that I am me, shouldn’t the bank be able to trust me too?

I’m really looking forward to iAM Smart becoming the ultimate “identity verification outsourcer.” It makes things more convenient for me, and banks will no longer need to maintain an e-ID&V system just for Hong Kong ID cards (I built one before, and it was a living hell).

Everybody wins.

My name is Wallace Tin, a bank worker (not “banker”) witnessing the history of banking development in beautiful Hong Kong since 2017.

I am translating my banking articles from Cantonese to English on weekly basis. If you like my work, please subscribe, highlight, comment and share.

You may also find the latest articles by becoming my patron at https://www.patreon.com/watin.

What is HSBC Actually Fixing by Introducing “iAM Smart” for Loan Approvals? was originally published in 華田銀行 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

＊＊＊

東野圭吾離世，我知道後第一個反應係：佢走得太早了。

東野圭吾我睇得唔算多，睇番維基，依出版年份順序，我睇過嘅有：放學後、十一字殺人、偵探俱樂部、變身、迴廊亭殺人事件、從前我死去的家、名偵探的守則、誰殺了她、偵探伽利略、祕密、我殺了他、白夜行、綁架遊戲、信、幻夜、嫌疑犯X的獻身、紅色手指、黎明破曉的街道、聖女的救贖、伽利略的苦惱、新參者、白金數據、真夏方程式、麒麟之翼、假面飯店、解憂雜貨店、當祈禱落幕時、空洞的十字架、第十年的情人節、沉默的遊行、你殺了誰。

只有 31 本... 即係 3 成都唔夠，因為維基寫佢係有超過 100 本小說的...

而我驚訝地發現，我竟然無睇晒《加賀恭一郎》系列！有無搞錯！？有無搞錯！？

東野圭吾，走得太早了

大家可能覺得東野圭吾係「小說機器」，由 1985年 27 歲出道以小說《放學後》一直到 2026 年 68 歲離世，41 年寫咗 107 本小說，每年出 2.6 本小說，機器吧？

但講佢嘅小說有幾變化多端之前，我時常都提醒自己強如東野圭吾，佢嘅成名之路都係好黑暗嘅。

佢 1985 年 27 歲憑小說《放學後》獲得江戶川亂步獎，然後就放棄咗全職工程師工作，開始咗全職作家之路。咁佢下次得獎係幾時？係 14 年後 1999 年嘅《祕密》 獲得日本推理作家協會獎，而含金量極高嘅直木賞同本格推理大獎就要再等到 21 年後 2006 年嘅 《嫌疑犯X的獻身》。

27 歲得獎，毅然轉型全職作家，但係再攞獎就係 14 年後，仲要只係「鼓勵性質」嘅日本推理作家協會獎，嗰時東野圭吾已經 41 歲，係人生最黃金嘅 27 — 41 歲，換轉係我又頂唔頂得順呢？東野圭吾唔單止頂住咗，40 歲嗰年仲係佢人生嘅轉捩點 — 40 歲嗰年佢離婚喇，原因不詳，但大家都唔難幻想吧？

再到直木賞同本格推理大獎，東野圭吾就已經係 48 歲，全職寫作超過 20 年時間，人生有幾多個十年？

再睇番中間呢 20 年，其實好多作品都極度出色：《白夜行》、《幻想》、《秘密》、《信》，我仲記得《白夜行》入面嘅一句說話：我的天空裏沒有太陽，總是黑夜﹐但並不暗，因為有東西代替了太陽。

如果你有睇過《白夜行》，你一定會知我講乜，而呢刻我有啲心痛喇。

咁大家話唔攞獎，搵錢總可以吧？剩係電視電影版權都收到笑吧？

最多人識《偵探伽利略》係 1998 年出版的，時年 40 歲，再到福山雅治、柴崎幸嘅電視版正式引爆伽利略熱潮，已經係 2007 年，東野圭吾時年 49 歲。

再再到 2008 年電影版嘅嫌疑犯X的獻身，東野圭吾所有早期中期近期小說被排山倒海被改編成電視電影，但一切都係已經係後話，佢已經時年 50 歲喇。

東野圭吾，推理已經唔重要喇

要數我最鍾意東野圭吾嘅系列，一定首推加賀恭一郎系列。

如果大家無時間無心力睇小說，推強阿部寬版本嘅《紅色手指》同《當祈禱落幕時》。

劇透就無謂喇，東野圭吾雖然唔係咩本格派作家，硬核讀者可能會嫌佢唔夠「推理」，但喺我心目中真係已經無咩所謂喇。

《紅色手指》講嘅係家庭之中 3 代人嘅愛恨矛盾，《當祈禱落幕時》講嘅係父母對子女嘅無私犧牲與扭曲，《惡意》講嘅係人性深處最純粹嘅恨意，以上 3 本都係加賀恭一郎系列啦。

再到更出名伽利略系列嘅《聖女的救贖》，大家可能會聚焦兇手不可能嘅詭計，但我只係睇到妻子一次又一次嘅倒數、一次又一次可能嘅掙扎，最後只好用殺人嚟換取自己嘅救贖。

（哈，小心屋企嘅女人，話唔定佢哋都係天海祐希呢。）

仲有《嫌疑犯X的獻身》探討嘅極致而扭曲嘅愛、《空洞的十字架》探討死刑嘅價值 (我睇完開始反死刑喇)、《沉默的遊行》探討法律正義與道德情感嘅衝突。

我諗世上好難再有一個東野圭吾。

東野先生，一路好走。

＊＊＊

只顧愉悅自己的文字：

• 來，來一碟手工意粉
• 來，來一杯手沖咖啡
• 來，來一條獨贏二穿三
• 來，來一首陳綺貞
• 來，來一雙新跑鞋
• 來，來一位可愛的同行伙伴
• 來，來說一下《縫身 》(聲音版)
• 來，來一張紅膠唱片
• 來，在高鐵來一包 Lays 薯片
• 來，來一個 22 年的等待 (聲音版)
• 來，來一堂瑜伽課
• 來，來一個初心如何？
• 來，來一個左上右下
• 來，來一碗忌廉辛辣麵!

來，來一本東野圭吾 was originally published in 華田士多 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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周日早上起床刷 YouTube，看到 MM 介紹在深水埗西九龍 foodcourt 的人氣手工意粉，廚師是 Pirata Group 的意大利主廚。嗯，好像很好吃的樣子。

其實家中也有一台家庭式意粉機，有好一段時間沒用過，沒事做，拿出來用一下。

—

來，來一碟手工意粉

最簡單的材料，只有麵粉和雞蛋，比例大約是 100g 麵粉配 1 隻大雞蛋。

因為臨時興起，雪櫃沒有蛋黃較大、蛋味較濃的蘭王，我又愛蛋香，所以用 2 隻湖北蛋敷衍一下，又怕太濕，所以只下了蛋黃。意大利人大概會把蛋白留來做甜品，我當然是用來另外炒飯了。

3 首歌不到的時間，變成這個樣子，多揉幾下增加筋性，包保鮮紙、放進雪櫃休息一下。

時機成熟，便是拉薄、切麵的時候。把麵團分 3 份，拿木棍稍稍壓平，放進機器慢慢壓平壓長，逐漸由這個樣子...

變成這個樣子。

然後就是切麵、煮麵、再混合煮好的醬汁。

醬汁要分開準備，都是很無趣的把雪櫃裏的蕃茄煮爛、濃縮、隔渣，櫃底有一小瓶鯷魚，加橄欖油炒香混合，再加芝士提一下鮮味，然後我發現我沒拍照。又當然大家用超市配好的也可以，隨時比自己做的更好吃。

醬汁和意粉混合後，加入早已煎香的 Guanciale，正。

Guanciale 在意大利買回來的 (還好保質期超長)，是一種極鹹的豬面肉，切條後再慢火炸出多餘的油脂，鹹脆味道，和蕃茄醬很配的。

剩下的油不要浪費，用來煎三文魚一流。

再看 MM，外觀上不是差不多嗎！？

其實還有個清蒸西蘭花，這個便不影了。

__

我又想起周慧在書中的一句：「每一天都會過掉，也會被忘記」。用一碟意粉記錄一下其實早已所剩無幾的每一天。

—

華田研究所總目錄：
https://www.patreon.com/posts/46026539/

—

Patreon 年費會員折扣喺 2026 年已經增加至 30%，即係畀 8.5 個月錢睇 12 個月；詳情可以睇番呢度：復刊通知之 2026 年計劃

來，來一碟手工意粉 was originally published in 華田士多 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

大家好細個好細個嗰陣，最常聽乜嘢歌呢？我講緊真係得五六歲嗰陣。當然呢個唔係反映住大家嘅音樂口味，更多係反映各位呀爸呀媽鍾意乜嘢歌手啦。

我對小時候聽歌嘅記憶，就來來去去只有 4 首歌，分別係：

• 陳慧嫻嘅 <<紅茶館>>
• 陳慧嫻嘅 <<傻女>>
• 陳慧嫻嘅 <<夜機>>
• 陳慧嫻嘅 <<千千闋歌>>

無錯，全部都係陳慧嫻，每當我諗起細時屋企，我就會諗起：

紅茶館～情侶早擠滿～依依愛話～未覺悶～

阿媽話佢仲有播譚詠麟同許冠傑的，不過真係一啲印象都無，記憶就係咁有趣。

做咩講起呢樣嘢呢？

因為最近我先發現原來<<夜機>>同<<千千闋歌>> 兩首歌原來係有關係的，90 年代嘅改編歌幾有趣的呢。

<<千千闋歌>> 與 <<夕陽之歌>>

90 年代初嘅香港樂壇好流行將外語歌改編做粵語歌，陳慧嫻嘅 <<千千闋歌>> 同梅艷芳嘅 <<夕陽之歌>> 就係兩個最出名嘅例子，同一年派台嘅歌曲，都係改編自 (被喻為日本第一渣男) 近滕真彥原唱嘅 <<夕焼けの歌>>，大家就知當年好曲難求，大家不惜玩雙胞胎都要攞到一首好嘅 melody 啦。

(<<夕焼けの歌>>用好多語言改編咗好多個版本，單計粵語就最少有 4 個 version，包括《千千闋歌》（1989）、《夕陽之歌》（1989）、《無聊時候》（1990）同《夢斷》（1991），不過明顯頭 2 首最紅啦。)

當年 (1989 年) 各大頒獎典禮都因為呢對雙胞胎出現咗少少風波，叱吒頒咗「最喜愛的歌曲大獎」畀陳慧嫻，俞琤直言佢哋係「真正代表民意」，無綫就將金曲金獎頒咗畀梅艷芳，令到陳慧嫻嘅唱片公司寶麗金非常不滿。

根據呀媽 (好唔客觀地) 引述，梅艷芳當年係天后級，不過 《千千闋歌》喺當年係紅啲的，算係逆襲吧。

睇番數據 (好似講波咁)，梅艷芳由 1985 年第 3 屆十大勁歌金曲頒奬典禮 (無綫嗰個) 一直到 1989 年第 7 屆頒奬典禮，連續 5 屆攞到「最受歡迎女歌星」，當年無綫嘅含金量係超高的，大家明白梅姐當年喺樂壇係咩地位啦。

講起 <<夕陽之歌>>，同原曲 <<夕焼けの歌>> 當然好有關係，只睇歌名都知中文歌詞幾乎係日文嘅意譯，講嘅都係夕陽無限，但時光有限，林夕 (應該係李商隱先啱) 都有話：夕陽無限好，只是近黃昏啦。

曾遇上幾多風雨翻 編織我交錯夢幻 曾遇你真心的臂彎 伴我走過患難 奔波中心灰意淡 路上紛擾波折再一彎 一天想到歸去但已晚

ゆらゆらと俺の頬に焼きつく (烙印在恍然若失的我的臉頰) あの頃と同じ 夕焼け空 (和那時一樣夕陽染透的天空) 土下座したいほど (近乎想要跪地懇求) 愛が欲しいだけ (不過是渴望得到愛) ああ春夏秋…も (啊啊～春夏秋……冬)

另外日文原唱近滕真彥亦同梅艷芳好有關係，兩人曾經係情侶，當年仲鬧出唔少大新聞；梅艷芳嘅告別演唱會入面，最後一首歌，佢著住婚妙唱嘅，就係 <<夕陽之歌>>。

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihzj44TdlQY

呢種將外語歌詞意譯入中文做改編歌嘅例子都唔少，例如我童年回憶之一、陳慧嫻嘅 <<紅茶館>>，就係改編自日本歌手平浩二嘅 <<バス・ストップ>> (直譯即係 Bus Stop 咯)，又係一個地點，望望這望望那，感嘆人生吧。

如果大家去 YouTube 聽的話呢，會覺得啲曲風係超超超老土的，無它，首歌係 1972 年的，大家記住歌係「昭和年代」嘅產物，就無違和感架喇。

YouTube： 平浩二「バス・ストップ」

咁 <<千千闋歌>> 嘅歌詞靈感又可能嚟自邊度？

我一直都無留意，因為連維基都無寫，但係當我無意中撳到 <<夜機>> 嘅原曲，我明白了。

<<夜機>> 與 <<千千闋歌>>

<<夜機>> 同 <<千千闋歌>> 都係收錄喺 1989 年陳慧嫻嘅專輯 <<永遠是你的朋友>>，然後 1990 年陳慧嫻就去咗紐約讀書了。

如果大家有聽過 <<夜機>>，大家有無同我一樣覺得個曲風好特別呢？

因為佢原曲係一首德文歌，1983 年推出，原名叫 So Viele Lieder Sind In Mir，優雅啲翻譯做中文的話，可以譯做 <<千千闋歌在我心>>，咁所有線索就連得埋一齊了。

So Viele Lieder Sind In Mir 嘅原唱歌手叫 Nicole (個藝名係無姓的)，個 style 同陳慧嫻都有少少似，首歌好好聽，畀條YouTube link 大家欣賞吓: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-th6HJFiXUc

打岔少少 (大家知德文我有啲研究架啦)，So Viele Lieder Sind In Mir 逐字翻譯即係 So Many Songs Are In Me，其中 “mir” 呢個德文字好 tricky 的。

英文 “me” 喺德文有 2 個形態，一個係 akkusativ (直接受格) 嘅 “mich”，另一個係 dativ (間接受格) 嘅 “mir”。

好 poetic 咁講 mir 比 mich 更有委婉、內在、精神性嘅感覺，例如德文好少直接講 I like it (“ich mag das”) 而會講 this impresses me (“das gefällt mir”)， “mir” 就喺呢度出現了，如果寫 “das gefällt mich” 係唔啱 grammar 的！

Facebook 個 like button 喺德文唔係叫 “mag” (like) 而係叫 gefällt mir 啦！

所以 So Viele Lieder Sind In Mir 可以優雅地譯做 <<千千闋歌在我心>>咯。

咁將 <<夜機>> 本來嘅 So Viele Lieder Sind In Mir 放入 <<夕焼けの歌>> 變成 <<千千闋歌>> 會唔會係一個意外呢？

我傾向係絕對有將移植嘅意思喇，原因 2 個：

首先睇歌詞，雖然德中 2 個版本唔係直譯，但係首歌個 idea 好似的，例如德文有一句 “hörst mir zu und bist mir nah” (聽著我、在我身旁)，遙距呼應住「因我今晚共你唱」吧…

然後就係睇製作團隊，<<千千闋歌>> 由林振強填詞、<<夜機>>由陳少琪填詞，好似唔關事，但係兩首歌都係由盧東尼編曲、製作人都係歐丁玉、都係放喺同一張專輯，無咁巧合吧。

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最後再次推薦一吓呢首<<夜機>> 嘅德文原版 ，好多德文歌都唔差的，有機會再推薦其他畀大家吧。

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-th6HJFiXUc

隨想 #134 — 從<<夜機>> 到 <<千千闋歌>>，粵語、日語、德語的大雜燴 was originally published in 華田士多 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.