Hong Kong’s SFC is hiring more crypto regulators, aims to strengthen market monitoring and speed up exchange approval.
Hong Kong is doubled on its ambition to become a global crypto hub, with its securities regulator proposed to expand its crypto oversight team.
The city’s Securities and Futures Commission has proposed to increase its employees, with special attention to monitoring of virtual asset trading platforms, improving market monitoring and increasing enforcement.
In its budget planning For the 2025–26 financial year, SFC 15 is demanding new fare, out of which eight will be dedicated to virtual assets regulation.
Budget proposal, presented at a Legislative Council meeting on 3 February, projects the recurrent expenditure of SFC to reach HK $ 2.59 billion ($ 332.4 million) for the next financial year – 7.2% from previous year forecast Increase of.
A large part of this development – HK $ 130.5 million ($ 16.7 million) – at the cost of high employees, including average increment 2.1%.
After being accepted by SFC, additional fare is necessarily seen that his existing employees, experiencing, struggle to meet the inspection goals.
In 2023, the regulator conducted only 200 on-site inspections of licensed financial firms, below its target of 300. With additional personnel, SFC attempts to remove this deficiency and increase its care of Hong Kong’s crypto ecosystem.
A fast way for licensing
Hong Kong Crypto is working aggressively to bring himself into position as an attractive destination yet. In June 2023, the city formally launched its licensing regime for VATPS, allowing approved exchanges to serve retail investors under a structured structure.
This innings marked a turn, as Hong Kong went away from its previous stance, which greatly limits the reach of crypto to institutional players. Since then, the government has been refining its regulatory approach, including pursuing a proposed Stabelcoin Oversite framework.
Meanwhile, the SFC is actively attached to the trading platforms to speed up the licensing process. In a January statement, the Commission asked for its close cooperation with the VATP officials, stating that this active engagement was helping to speed up approval, strengthening the expectations.
The results of this push are becoming clear. On 27 January, SFC issued its first two licenses of 2025, approved as licensed crypto exchanges to Pantherrade and Yax. This brought the total licensed VATPs to nine in Hong Kong, including OSL and Hashki.
