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Securities and Futures Commission

Hong Kong's statutory regulator overseeing securities, futures, and increasingly crypto markets, licensing firms and enforcing market conduct rules.

Known aliases

  • Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission
  • Hong Kong SFC
  • Hong Kong's securities regulator

Current stories

investOne report1 publisher

Crypto trading commissions at Hong Kong brokers fell 13.5% against the industry's 21% profit gain

Hong Kong brokers' crypto commissions fell 13.5% to HK$99.3 million in the first half of 2026, SFC figures show. Industry net profit rose 21% in the same half, and crypto now makes up about 0.22% of brokers' commission and interest income.

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption15
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
investConfirmed2 publishers

Hong Kong's crypto bill could force unlicensed OTC desks and custodians to stop operating

Hong Kong will table a bill by end-2026 creating four SFC crypto licences, covering dealing, custody, advisory and management, with no grandfathering. For firms holding neither an SFC nor an HKMA licence, the date that decides their business is commencement, and it has not been set.

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence60
investOne report1 publisher

Hong Kong's two licensed stablecoin issuers wait for a trading venue behind the city's yuan agenda

Christopher Hui gave Hong Kong lawmakers an offshore-yuan agenda led by PBoC swap talks while the city's two licensed stablecoin issuers lack a trading venue. Both issue Hong Kong-dollar coins, and the licensing bill for virtual-asset trading is promised only for later this year.

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption15
Hype gap+10
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence45
investOne report1 publisher

Hong Kong's year-end crypto bill extends licensing to dealers, custodians, advisers and managers

Hong Kong plans four new licensing regimes for crypto dealing, custody, advisory and management in a bill due before the end of 2026. The bill still has to pass the Legislative Council and no start date has been reported, so a 2027 licensing deadline is, for now, each firm's own estimate.

Publishers:crypto.news

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
investConfirmed2 publishers

Hong Kong folds licensed crypto firms into the audit oversight that covers brokers and funds

Hong Kong's SFC and its audit regulator, the AFRC, replaced their 2021 cooperation pact with one that reaches the audits of licensed crypto firms. Any added cost for those platforms runs through their auditors and enforcement referrals, since nothing reported changes the licensing rules.

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+25
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence58
investOne report1 publisher

Morgan Stanley's leaked list of 100-plus deals raises block-trade risks

Morgan Stanley's Asia sponsors head mistakenly emailed clients an internal list of more than 100 deals the bank was working on or monitoring. The money at risk sits with sellers of block trades on that list, because their placements depend on buyers not expecting the shares.

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives50
Confidence58
investOne report1 publisher

HKMA takes Hong Kong's debt settlement platform on-chain around the clock by year end

The Securities and Futures Commission is drafting a digital-asset licensing regime alongside the upgrade, and the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin already in circulation totalled 522,000 tokens on August 19.

Reality

Evidence48
Adoption22
Hype gap+32
Incentives58
Confidence45
investOne report1 publisher

Hong Kong's SFC chairman puts AI-assisted decisions under Section 465 director duties

Kelvin Wong told a Hong Kong governance conference that boards own AI-assisted decisions. Almost nine in ten listed issuers mention AI in their reports and fewer than a fifth describe a framework for governing it.

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption32
Hype gap+18
Incentives58
Confidence58
investOne report1 publisher

Mirae adds a tokenized share class to a live Hong Kong ETF, with future trading via a virtual asset platform

The fund and its strategy are unchanged, so what the tokenized share class buys is a second route to buyers, with Citi running the register and an SFC-licensed venue owning the client relationship. Exchange trading is still future tense.

Publishers:en.sedaily.com

Reality

Evidence38
Adoption20
Hype gap+25
Incentives72
Confidence42
investOne report1 publisher

Hong Kong is opening private markets to retail before the plumbing is built

A June SFC proposal would widen retail access to a pool McKinsey sizes at about US$100 billion. The binding constraint is reporting, liquidity and the intermediaries who must explain both.

Publishers:scmp.com

Reality

Evidence34
Adoption28
Hype gap+27
Incentives74
Confidence41