HONG KONG – Hong Kong’s financial regulator will launch a framework for a trading platform offering perpetual contracts, the head of the Securities and Futures Commission said on Wednesday.
Hong Kong brokerage will soon be able to offer financing to Bitcoin-backed clients and ether Julia Leung, CEO of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, told CoinDesk’s Hong Kong Consensus Conference that the platform will be able to provide market-making services through independent units.
Leung said that while the SEC plans to share more details later, the moves are part of the regulator’s broader push to get regulated companies to offer more products and services, following its 2025 roadmap, which includes efforts to develop local cryptocurrency markets.
The SFC has already published the conclusions of its consultation on custody and related issues, but these new initiatives focus on continuing to develop these markets in Hong Kong, including novel products such as perpetual futures contracts.
“We will publish a high-level framework for a platform that offers perpetual contracts,” she said.
She said the products were currently only available to institutional investors, not retail clients, and that the framework would focus on risk. Platforms seeking to offer these products need to be able to manage these risks “but also have to be very fair to customers.”
Regarding other measures, Leung Chun-ying said that the Securities and Futures Commission will soon start sharing more details.
“We will allow brokers to provide financing to customers with good credit standing, and the collateral will be backed by securities and virtual assets,” she said. “Because virtual assets…many of them are very volatile, we will start with two assets that qualify as collateral: Bitcoin and Ethereum.”
Platforms wishing to participate in market making need to ensure they have strong conflict-of-interest rules and independent market-making units, she said.
