HONG KONG — Hong Kong financial regulators will unveil a framework for trading platforms to offer perpetual contracts, the head of the region’s Securities and Futures Commission said Wednesday.
Hong Kong brokers will soon be able to provide funding to Bitcoin-backed clients and ether and platforms will be able to offer market making through independent units, Julia Leung, CEO of SFC Hong Kong, said at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference.
Although the SFC plans to share more details later, these measures are part of a broader initiative by the regulator to allow regulated companies to offer more products and services, Leung said, following its 2025 roadmap which included an effort to grow the local crypto market.
The SFC has already published the findings of its consultation on custody and related issues, but these new initiatives aim to continue the development of these markets in Hong Kong, including with new products such as perpetual futures.
“We will publish a high-level framework for platforms to offer perpetual contracts,” she said.
These products will only be available for now to institutional investors, not retail clients, she said, and the framework will focus on risks. Platforms seeking to offer these products will need to be able to manage these risks, “and they will also need to be very fair to customers.”
Regarding other initiatives, Leung said the SFC would start sharing more details soon.
“We will enable brokers to provide financing to clients with strong credit profiles, and the collateral will be backed by both securities and virtual assets,” she said. “Because virtual assets…a lot of them are very volatile, so we’re going to start with two that will be eligible as collateral, Bitcoin and Ether.”
Platforms seeking to engage in market making will need to ensure they have strict conflict of interest rules and independent market making units, she said.
