After watching all the news about Cyprus, I wanted to know how safe my stocks and cash in HK would be should my broker go bankrupt.
My broker said that my stocks were kept with a custodian bank and in the event they or the custodian went bankrupt, I'd be protected by the Investor Compensation Fund:
http://www.hkicc.org.hk/about_us/introduction_e.htm
It turns out the ICF will only compensate you up to HKD150K max. A ridiculously small amount! especially for those who put a big portion of their life savings in stocks.
I called up the ICF and a lady there suggested I check out the investor accounts with CCASS which is owned by the HKEX. I called up CCASS and the guy there said that similarly as stocks are held under HKEX's name, should HKEX go bankrupt (unlikely but theoretically possible), then yes, I'd also lose all my stocks except for the HKD150K claim against the ICF.
So what to do? A lot of my life savings are in HK stocks and I would hate to lose my life savings just because my intermediary went bust!
I thought our stocks and cash were to be segregated and presumably, accessible to us should the broker go bust but that appears not to be the case. How can I protect myself??