In less than a year since crypto exchanges were approved by regulators in Hong Kong, both traditional financial institutions and brokerages have been eager to obtain their digital asset licenses for trading.
One such example is Tiger Brokers, a Chinese stock brokerage, which upgraded its Type 1 Hong Kong Securities & Futures Commission (SFC) in January to include crypto trading for professional investors and financial institutions based in Hong Kong. Tiger Brokers currently has 865,500 funded accounts with a total of $18.9 billion in managed assets. According to John Fei Zeng, the CFO and director of Tiger Brokers, the firm has uplifted its license to trade virtual assets for professional investor clients and will accept retail clients after SFC’s approval. This means that residents of Hong Kong will be able to trade virtual assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum alongside stocks, options, futures, funds, and ETFs through Tiger Trade.
Tiger Brokers is also considering listing additional digital assets, including altcoins, pending regulatory approval. They also have plans for international expansion in licensed markets such as Australia, the US, Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK, and New Zealand.
Victory Securities, another Hong Kong brokerage, obtained a license from the SFC in November to offer crypto trading services for retail investors. The company reported that the amount of virtual asset transactions and the number of new customers in the third quarter of this year more than doubled compared to the previous quarter. To encourage new customers to choose compliant and safe virtual asset trading services, Victory Securities plans to launch a number of trading discounts in the future.
OSL, a licensed Hong Kong crypto exchange, partnered with Interactive Brokers on November 28, 2023, to open Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) trading to retail investors through its platform. Additionally, crypto exchange Bybit has submitted a retail trading license application in Hong Kong. However, Web3 firms may need to invest as much as $25 million in corporate infrastructure and compliance to meet the requirements for license approval.
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