MoneySQ and Bridgeway team up to form Hong Kong’s first crowdfunding platform for professional investors

A peer-to-peer lending company in Hong Kong has partnered with an asset management firm to create what they claim is the city’s first investment platform designed for professional investors.

MoneySQ.com formed an allegiance with Bridgeway Prime Shop Fund Management Ltd to create the online lending service, which will be able to operate under current regulations.

The partnership comes as a government report on the growing financial technology (fintech) sector released at the end of February took steps to clarify the legal standing for peer-to-peer lenders and suggested schemes limited to professional investors would be permitted.

“For the government, it’s quite hard for them to say ‘yes’ [to such lending]. They’re afraid if people lose money, they’ll just go to the government [to complain],” said Steven Lee, founder of MoneySQ.com.

He said such forms of lending are considered “too risky” by retirees, and that the company began looking to service professional investors from last year.

The Steering Group on Financial Technologies, a body set up in March 2015 to advise the Hong Kong government on fintech development, issued a report stating that “subject to compliance with SFO [Securities and Futures Ordinance] licensing, authorisation and other relevant regulatory requirements... offers limited to professional investors may benefit from certain exemptions.”