Financial panic spreads via Internet and text messages. Monetary authority and the BEA blame “malicious rumours”.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Thousands of depositors waited overnight at branches of the Bank of East Asia (BEA) to withdraw money from their accounts. Beginning yesterday afternoon fear spread at the speed of mobile-phone text messages and on websites sending people to queue in front of the bank’s branches. Reassurances by the Monetary Authority and the bank itself were to no avail. Branches had to stay open late to cope with the influx of customers.

BEA executive director Joseph Pang Yuk-wing flatly denied there was any truth to the "malicious rumours" and said the police were investigating.

Perhaps the originators of the text messages sought to lower the bank’s share price, which in effect closed down by 6.85 per cent. Today however it rebounded by 3 per cent.

According to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the BEA, which is the territory’s fifth largest bank, was financially sound and had sufficient funds to cope with the needs of its customers.

Last week the bank re-issued its first-half results to account for a loss of about US$ 12 million.

The BEA suffered losses as a result of the US mortgage crisis.

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