Financial firms' Hong Kong operations disrupted by protests

Some financial firms in Hong Kong have expressed concern over the ongoing protests in the territory, and are advising employees to work from home or other locations, Reuters reported. Singapore’s largest bank, DBS Group Holdings, will temporarily suspend services at its branch in the Admiralty neighborhood amid an increasingly violent crackdown against residents demanding democratic reform. This comes following police squads’ use of tear gas and pepper spray on Sunday to disperse the growing crowds of protestors, many of them students, who have launched a campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience to pressure Beijing into granting Hong Kongers the right to choose the territory’s chief executive directly.