We may take some comfort from the fact that, when set against the millions of banking consumer transactions that take place every day, they still form a very small number. There are also many ways of explaining the increase before we start to point to the possibility of declining standards of service. But the increase is a matter of concern to the HKMA, not least because, although we are subject to just as much public scrutiny as the football referees, we do not possess their almost unlimited powers of decision. Around a year ago I spoke at your half-yearly dinner on the subject of consumer protection and the banking industry. In that speech I set out the various options identified by the HKMA for a more effective handling of consumer complaints against banks. Today I am going to address the same subject. You might be wondering whether I am running out of topics, or whether the HKMA has got stuck in a groove. But I raise the subject again for three reasons: •  First, while there has been some enhancement and standardisation of the procedures for handling complaints by the banks themselves, through the HKMA's guideline on the subject issued in February, and through the industry's own Code of Banking Practice, the basic question of what to do with complaints that are not resolved by individual banks remains unanswered. Other than the courts, there is no external dispute resolution mechanism for bank customers in Hong Kong.
Essentially we took the view that unbalanced growth was better than no growth at all - which was the only other option we had. This "two speed" economy has, I know, been reflected in the pattern of your own activity as FLA members, with consumer finance volumes growing strongly in recent years where business volumes have been relatively flat. In the past year alone new business written to consumers was nearly three times that written to business customers. Now clearly the imbalances can't go on increasingly indefinitely. The build-up of household debt and the related strong rise in house prices we saw last year in particular must begin to moderate at some point. So much of the recent debate has been about whether the eventual adjustment will occur gradually, within the context of continuing overall expansion, or more abruptly in which case the overall expansion could prove more difficult to sustain. On the macro-economic data it seems clear that the global economy in fact bottomed out around a year or so ago, and that we have since seen the beginnings of a recovery, notably in the US, on which so much of the rest of the world currently depends. And it is also clear that monetary policy generally and in some countries also fiscal policy - remains supportive.