Hong Kong’s securities regulator mulling over new rules for city’s cryptocurrency exchanges
- Outgoing chairman Carlson Tong Ka-shing says Hong Kong is leading the world in developing measures to keep the fast-growing sector in check
Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) is exploring ways to regulate the various cryptocurrency trading platforms already operating in the city and thus tighten investor protection, says its outgoing chairman Carlson Tong Ka-shing.
His chief sensitivity, however, he told the South China Morning Post, is that the SFC is technically restricted by its legal regulatory reach of securities only.
“We do not think imposing a total ban on these platforms is necessarily the right approach, and it will not work in today’s internet world when trading can cross national boundaries,” said Tong, who is due to hand over the SFC’s reins to Tim Lui Tim-leung on October 19.
“Even if we were to ban them, transactions can still be easily conducted via platforms in overseas markets.”
Similar to traditional stock exchanges, centralised crypto-exchanges are generally run by organisations that oversee their operation, maintenance and security, and which grant users access to the platform by paying a fee. Several are being operated in Hong Kong, but they remain unregulated.