Hong Kong’s SFC Invites Companies to Apply for Regulatory Licenses

The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong has finished drafting its regulation and started to release a set of guidelines for crypto companies based in the city. The decision comes just a week after China’s Xi JINPING announced a plan to focus on blockchain development in the Mainland.

Considering that most of the retail investors in Hong Kong tend to be Chinese Mainlanders, the SFC needed to somehow jump on the Chinese blockchain bandwagon to keep it rolling in the future.

However, according to reporters from Bitcoincapital, the SFC will not be forcing local companies to go through with the license. What this means is that every company that operates in Hong Kong, will have a choice to apply for the license or remain unregulated.

Not having a license could imply that these companies can only service local Hong Kongers, and a license would mean they’d be open Mainlanders, but at the cost of giving out customer trading data and some information to the government.

Considering that billions of dollars are funneled from Mainland to Hong Kong, it’s extremely likely that the large majority of crypto exchanges in the city will bite the bullet and go for a regulatory license. Those that focus on a more global customer-base are likely to opt-out.