On the 6th, the Guangdong Provincial Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange announced that the "Guangdong Hong Kong Elderly Care Connect" has been officially launched, supporting the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department to provide portable cash assistance, including elderly comprehensive social security payments, elderly living allowances, and old age allowances, which can be directly distributed across borders to Hong Kong elderly people's first-class accounts at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China in Guangdong Province.
It is reported that this service adopts a system direct connection mode. Hong Kong elderly only need to contact the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department or its agency in Guangdong Province, complete the account registration procedures once, and the monthly allowance will be automatically credited to the account thereafter.
Through the peer system clearing mode, "Guangdong Hong Kong Elderly Care Connect" achieves full reduction of cross-border remittance handling fees - zero handling fees for the entire process from Hong Kong to mainland China. Based on the previous practice of paying a processing fee of approximately HKD 100 per remittance and distributing it once a month, it can save each elderly person in Hong Kong thousands of HKD annually.
After receiving the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance, Elderly Living Allowance, and Old Age Allowance for the elderly in Hong Kong's domestic accounts, they can freely choose the timing of foreign exchange settlement within an annual facilitation limit equivalent to $50000. The exchange rate is calculated based on the daily bank rate, giving the elderly greater autonomy in fund management.
The bureau stated that with the official implementation of the "Guangdong Hong Kong Elderly Care Connect", Guangdong has formed a cross-border elderly care financial service pattern driven by both the "Guangdong Macao Elderly Care Connect" and the "Guangdong Hong Kong Elderly Care Connect", making the elderly in Hong Kong and Macao live a more peaceful, worry free, and comfortable life in the mainland in their later years. In the next stage, the bureau will continue to track the progress of the "Cross border Elderly Care Connect" business and the business needs of elderly people in Hong Kong and Macao, taking serving cross-border elderly care as the starting point, and building a more comprehensive cross-border elderly care financial service system. (Looking into the New Era)