Hang Seng Bank's Sham Shui Po branch posted prime-plus 2.5 percent for an unsecured SME facility on Thursday. Unchanged since February. The woman at the counter ran a garment accessories wholesaler on Nam Cheong Street; her supplier in Dongguan raised the minimum order to HK$80,000 in April; she needs HK$120,000 to carry the quarter. Reuters reported Friday that Beijing's financial regulators have expanded pressure on HK-listed banks and insurers to disclose mainland exposure and reduce concentration risk, citing two people with knowledge of the directive. The review targets institutions where cross-border products make up more than 30 percent of assets; those are the banks that still take calls from a borrower like the one on Nam Cheong Street. The directive carries no public timetable.

South China Morning Post ran the same day with residential developers regaining pricing power, four districts recording month-on-month price increases in May: Kowloon City, Sham Shui Po, Kwun Tong, and Tsuen Wan. The two stories share a date. The woman on Nam Cheong Street is not the buyer the developers are pricing for; she is the tenant the landlord prices against. The HKMA has not signaled any adjustment to its SME lending facilitation framework before its next policy review, scheduled for August.