Ronald Leung’s original, dated commentary is reproduced below. Views, invitations and product references reflect the time of publication; they are not investment advice, an offer, a guarantee of return or confirmation of current availability.
I recently got asked by South China Morning Post SCMP what comes next for Hong Kong as a global financial hub.
My response: "Does it want to be a creator, or a follower?"
Blunt as it may sound, time is not on our side.
London has already moved. On 10 August the Financial Times reported that UK regulators are preparing a framework for tokenised gold to protect the dominance of London in global bullion trading.
Hong Kong's current answer is infrastructure: better physical delivery, more vaulting, on the way to becoming the pricing centre for gold in the Asian time zone.
All necessary. None of it new. Storing bars and trading bars is an investment business, and it is the investment business London already runs at scale.
Build only that and we become comparable to London.
Which is another way of saying we follow.
The greater potential sits one step further out.
Gold lifts an economy when the instrument backed by it can be transferred and settled, not only held.
There is an opening here. The UK is still working out how tokenised gold should be overseen, because the FCA does not regulate trading in physical gold.
Hong Kong does not have that problem. Section 53ZTZ of Cap. 615 already defines a "precious-asset-backed instrument", and expressly carves it out from securities, futures contracts, interests in a collective investment scheme, structured products, OTC derivative products and virtual assets.
More in the video.
Read more on SCMP: https://lnkd.in/g2P9SgK7
Disclosure: the Esperanza group holds SFC Type 4 and Type 9 licences and a Hong Kong Customs Category A precious metals and stones dealer registration, and works on tokenised gold.
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