HSBC has been complicit in financially isolating Hong Kong citizens after making it impossible for them to access their savings after moving to Britain, MPs have said.

The bank withheld the release of funds to citizens who left the city amid a crackdown by Beijing, saying entry documents provided by the British government to Hong Kong immigrants were not sufficient to unlock their money, it was claimed.

More than 88,000 people have been granted residency in the UK after leaving Hong Kong since early 2021, under the British National Overseas (BNO) visa scheme.

According a 23-page report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong, HSBC has withheld access to Mandatory Provident Funds, a compulsory savings programme for Hong Kong residents.

The cross-party report said the lender was "unjustly" denying its customers access to their own savings.

Alistair Carmichael, co-chair of the group and a member of the Liberal Democrat party, said banks were "doing the dirty work of the Chinese Communist Party".

He told Bloomberg: “This is no longer just about the interpretation of the law, this is about the fundamental rights of an individual to have access to their own property.

“This is causing genuine hardship for people who have made the difficult decision to leave Hong Kong.”

HSBC said in a statement that it respected human rights and "like all banks, we have to obey the law, and the instructions of the regulators, in every territory in which we operate". 

The committee's report comes two years after HSBC chief executive Noel Quinn faced a grilling by MPs over the bank's operations in Hong Kong, its biggest generator of revenue and profit. 

Giving evidence in January 2021, Mr Quinn said HSBC had to comply with the law and it was not for him to make a "moral or political judgment on these matters".