(Bloomberg) — HSBC Holdings Plc will require all employees to have a valid vaccine pass to enter its premises in Hong Kong from March 28, as the Asian financial hub battles its worst outbreak since the pandemic started. 

“All HSBC employees, contractors and third parties will need to be vaccinated or have a valid medical exemption to enter any HSBC premises, including all branches,” the bank said in a memo on Wednesday. The new requirement won’t apply to customers entering HSBC branches. A spokesman for the lender confirmed the content of the memo.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority last month urged banks to consider imposing a vaccine mandate at the workplace and required them to inform the regulator whether they will do so. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. earlier introduced rules requiring all staff to get their shots before entering the office from Feb. 24. 

After two years of limited outbreaks, Hong Kong is now facing its toughest challenge of the pandemic, with the highly transmissible omicron variant testing its zero-tolerance, high intensity approach to keeping Covid out. New cases have ballooned from a few hundred a day to more than 30,000 a day and the city has one of the world’s highest Covid death rates. 

Hong Kong is planning a four-day limited lockdown at the start of a compulsory Covid-19 testing blitz for the city’s 7.5 million people later this month, local news outlet HK01 reported Wednesday.

HSBC’s vaccine pass will be implemented in three phases to allow ample time for staff to be vaccinated, according to the memo. At least one dose of a vaccine or valid medical exemption will be required for entry from March 28, with the number of doses stepping up in April and June, it added.

Clients unable to provide a vaccine pass in the HSBC main building or HSBC Center will be able to meet in designated areas, the memo said. 

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