(31 March 2020 – Hong Kong) Airstar is offering innovative virtual banking services to some 2,000 customers from friends and families of their staff in a pilot trial – the third among the group of eight virtual banks to do so in Hong Kong, following ZA Bank and Mox.
This pilot will be conducted within the Fintech Supervisory Sandbox (FSS) of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), gathering practical user requirements and feedback in preparation for a full rollout.
The bank’s tag line is to become “Everyone’s Bank” and is a joint venture virtual bank between Xiaomi and AMTD Group. As a member of the Deposit Protection Scheme, all their customers’ deposits are eligible for protection of up to a maximum amount of HKD500,000.
Airstar’s customers will be able to open an account remotely in 5 minutes, using their Hong Kong identity card without any minimum deposit requirement. They will gain access to free inter-bank transfer through the Faster Payment System (FPS) and Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS).
As part of the pilot trial, Airstar is providing tiered-pricing savings deposits and time deposits with deposit rate of up to 1 percent per annum for HKD saving deposits between HKD 500,000 and HKD1,000,000. The Bank is also offering unsecured lending products at transparent pricing with interest accrual on a daily basis.