Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said that the government has recently completed the legislative work to set up a licensing system for virtual asset service providers.
Under the new system, the anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing, and investor protection requirements that relevant exchanges need to meet are consistent with the requirements currently applicable to traditional financial institutions, which is believed to provide a certain degree of market recognition for virtual asset exchanges. He also said that in the context of the explosion of virtual asset exchanges in the near future, Hong Kong has become a foothold for high-quality virtual asset companies to connect. It will create risk gaps in financial stability, investor protection, improper financial activities, etc.
Paul Chan Mo-po also pointed out that the government and regulatory agencies are also conducting a number of pilot projects to test the technical advantages of virtual assets and explore related applications. He revealed that the green bonds to be issued by the government will be tokenized for subscription by institutional investors.
In addition, Joseph Chan Ho-lim, deputy director of the Hong Kong Financial Services and Treasury Bureau, said that the Securities Regulatory Commission is formulating regulatory rules for virtual asset exchanges and hopes to start public consultation as soon as possible early this year.