The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) plans to restructure its banking supervision and regulatory function, creating a new enforcement department to take over responsibility for securities enforcement and complaints-handling from the banking development department.

The reorganisation is designed to help the central bank manage the complex workload of banking supervision and development work following the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, the HKMA said.

"This arrangement will ensure full-time attention at the senior level to the handling of the disciplinary processes arising from the completion of the investigation into most of the Lehman-related complaints, and to the investigation and processing of non-Lehman-related complaints," the central bank said.

Under the change, scheduled to be implemented on April 1, the three banking departments of the HKMA will be reorganised into four. The banking development department will be replaced by a banking conduct department and an enforcement department. Raymond Li will move from the soon-to-be defunct banking development department to be director-general for enforcement with Meena Datwani stepping up from deputy general counsel to take responsibility for conduct. Karen Kemp and Nelson Man will remain responsible for policy and supervision respectively, although the functions within these two areas have changed.

In two other moves, Carmen Chu will take up the appointment as executive director of the external department, which is responsible for multilateral agencies and central bank co-operation, renminbi banking business and financial market integration issues. Howard Lee will take over from Christopher Munn as executive director of the corporate services department.