Briefs: Rap for HSBC, Virus stops mortgage payments 11 March 2020 5:10PM Banking Day staff Briefs, Authorised deposit-taking institutions, Finance regulation, Foreign news, Foreign Subsidiary Bank, The New Zealand Commerce Commission has issued a warning to HSBC over a failure to comply with the information disclosure requirements of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act 2003 (CCCFA). The bank self-reported the failure to the Commission following a routine audit of its business in New Zealand which identified six occasions between 2014 and 2018 when it failed to disclose an interest rate increase to borrowers. The failures affected 225 loans and 180 borrowers. It said the failures were due to inadequate internal manual processes and failure to identify errors in a timely way and it had since written to the affected customers and made changes to its processes including moving to automated disclosure processes where possible. It has also paid compensation to affected borrowers totalling about NZ$7,000. As the country battles the Covid-19 virus outbreak, Italy has ordered the suspension of mortgage payments. When asked about the possibility of halting mortgage payments during a radio interview deputy finance minister Laura Castelli, said: "Yes, that will be the case, for individuals and households."