Enrolling your employees

Employer's obligation

You're required to enrol your non-casual employees into your MPF scheme unless they are exempt persons.

Non-casual employees are:

• Aged between 18 and below 65
• Employed for a continuous period of 60 days or more
• Full-time and part-time

Enrolment deadline

You're required to enrol your employees into an MPF scheme within the 60-day permitted period (first 60 days of employment).

If the last day of the 60-day permitted period falls on a Saturday, public holiday, or gale or black rainstorm signal, the deadline for enrolment will be extended to the following day which is not a Saturday, public holiday, or gale or black rainstorm signal.

See below for the special dates for enrolling newly employed non-casual employees.

Pay attention to the special dates in each year when making enrolments and first-time contributions for newly employed non-casual employees

Employers are obligated to enrol new employees into MPF scheme and make mandatory contributions in full and on time. Otherwise, a financial penalty and/or surcharge may be imposed by the MPFA for late enrolment and/or late payment of contributions. It is essential to understand the MPF enrolment deadline and the correct day to make the first-time contributions for your newly employed non-casual employees.

Enrolment deadline

First-time contributions: 

The first-time contributions should be paid to your trustee on or before the 10th day after the last day of the calendar month on which the 60th day of employment falls.

However, there are some special days each year that employers should pay attention to. That is, when the MPF enrolment deadline falls on the last calendar day of a month which is a Saturday, a public holiday, a gale warning day or a black rainstorm warning day, making it necessary to extend the MPF enrolment deadline for the new employees to the first business day of next month. However, the 'first-time contribution day' for the first contributions of employee remains unchanged.

For instance, if the new employee's 60th day of employment is Saturday, 16 April 2022, the deadline for enrolment of this employee will be extended to next business day (that is19 April 2022), which is not a Saturday, a public holiday, a gale warning day or a black rainstorm warning day. However, there is no change to the end date of the permitted period (for the purpose of calculating the contribution day) and no postponement of the 'first-time contribution day', herein, the deadline for employer to pay the first-time contributions in full for this new employee remains unchanged on 10 May 2022.

Consequences of failing to enrol employees

Employers who fail to enrol employees in an MPF scheme are liable to financial penalty and even imprisonment. Visit MPFA's website at www.mpfa.org.hk for details.

You should provide your new employees with:

1. Member Service Guide
2. HSBC MPF Overview
   
   • Guide them through your HSBC MPF scheme, their constituent fund choices, management fees under the scheme and member service
3. Employee Application Form
   • Employees should complete and return the signed Employee Application Form. After we've received and processed their application form, the contributions will be allocated according to employee's investment option specified on the application form. The relevant MPF correspondence will also be sent to your employee's residential address in accordance with the information provided on the application form.

• Change of Additional Voluntary Contribution Arrangement Form (IN55)
  • Employees can give or change their regular additional voluntary contribution instructions.

The way to enrol a new employee:

1. Employee Application Form

Submit the Employee Application Form, which must be signed by the employer's authorised signatory and the employee, to set up an MPF account for your employee before the enrolment deadline.

Points to note for enrolling a new employee:

1. You should give the Employee Application Form to your employees as soon as possible to give them sufficient time to study the constituent funds available in HSBC MPF scheme and decide on their investment portfolio.
2. Ensure your employees complete, sign (including the 'Declaration and authorisation' in member section of the application form) and return the Employee Application Form to you. If your employees do not wish to make a fund choice or do not provide a valid investment option, all contributions will be invested in accordance with the DIS*. If there is no valid residential address provided by employees on the application form, the relevant MPF correspondence cannot be sent to them.
3. Employers are required to confirm the accuracy and completeness of the enrolment information by signing in the designated areas(s) on the Employee Application Form. Otherwise, the application form has to be signed by a duly authorised signatory. Please ensure you complete and sign the 'Employer section' on the application form, a company chop only is not accepted in lieu of such.
4. In the circumstances that the Employee Application Form is not properly completed and signed by employer and employee, we may refuse to process the enrolment of the employee(s) concerned.
5. You should always enrol your employees with their Hong Kong Identity (HKID) Card.
   The HKID card number should be used as the identification number of an MPF account. Passport numbers should be given only if your employees do not possess a HKID card. Please enclose a copy of the passport and provide the place of issue. 
   When you handle MPF administrative issues (such as reporting and payment of MPF contributions, reporting termination details, handling severance payments or long service payments) for your employees, please provide their identification number which should be the same as the one registered in our records. 
   Please note that, using a non-registered identification number for any instruction for an MPF account may result in unnecessary error or delay in processing. 
   If there is any update on the identification number, please provide a written notice together with a copy of relevant supporting documents to us for processing. You should also use the updated information on managing your MPF contribution issue afterwards.
6. Accuracy of the date of birth of your employees is very important as it determines the start day of contributions when the employee is at the age of 18 and the end day of contributions when the employee is at the age of 65 and the date of the annual de-risking process of your employee if the contributions of your employee are invested according to the DIS. 
   If your employee's HKID card contains the year of birth only and there is no other form of identity to prove the exact date of birth, 31 December should be used as the day and month. 
   If the HKID card contains the year and month but not the date and there is no other form of identity to prove the exact date of birth, the last day of the month should be used.
7. You may set up different pay centres for different payroll cycles. Ensure you enrol your employees into a correct pay centre, report and make the contributions to the correct MPF account of your employees. 
   To set up additional pay centres, submit a 'Pay Centre Set Up Form' (IN03).

• For employees with a completed employee application form processed 
  After we've received and processed the Employee Application Form, the contributions will be invested according to the valid investment option specified by the employee on the application form. 
  
  A 'Notice of Participation' (or an 'MPF Membership Certificate' before 1 August 2015) and an enrolment confirmation notice will be sent to your employees.
  
  A Member Benefit Statement will be delivered to your employee directly.

Remark: Contributions and/or any transfer-in monies will be invested in accordance with the DIS, then the DIS will be effected automatically if your employees do not make a fund choice or do not provide a valid investment option when we process the contribution allocation. The DIS aims to balance the long term effects of risk and return through investing in 2 constituent funds, namely the Core Accumulation Fund and the Age 65 Plus Fund, according to the pre-set allocation percentages at different ages. The DIS will manage investment risk exposure by automatically reducing the exposure to higher risk assets and correspondingly increasing the exposure to lower risk assets as the member gets older.

• Enrol your employees within the regulatory deadlines to avoid penalties for failing to comply with MPF legislative requirements.
• Ensure the information provided on the Employee Application Form is complete and accurate, and signed by both the employer and employee.
• Submit your new employees' Employee Application Forms as soon as possible to protect their interests and enable us to provide them with relevant MPF services.