 When investing, you should deal with properly licensed intermediary and individuals who act on your behalf. However, do you know what kind of licence should your broker firm have?
i) One single licence A single licensing regime has been operating in Hong Kong in which each intermediary only needs one licence to carry out one or more types of the following nine regulated activities: Type 1 – dealing in securities Type 2 – dealing in futures Type 3 – leveraged foreign exchange trading Type 4 – advising on securities Type 5 – advising on futures contracts Type 6 – advising on corporate finance Type 7 – providing automated trading services Type 8 – securities margin financing Type 9 – asset management ii) Licence checks To check the licence status of corporations and individuals, the most convenient way is to refer to the “Public Register of Licensed Persons and Registered Institutions” under the “Intermediaries, Licensing and Investment Products" section on the SFC’s website. You can search for a target company/individual in the register by either the licensee's name or type of regulated activity. Each licensed corporation's record in the register contains a wide array of information about the corporation, including its name, date of licence, addresses, the type(s) of regulated activities it is permitted to conduct, conditions attached to each licence (if any). The register also provides names of the responsible officers who are responsible for directly supervising the corporation's regulated activities, and the names of the corporation's representatives acting on its behalf. In respect of responsible officers and representatives, you can get information such as the date of their licence, the type(s) of regulated activities, the name of their principal (i.e. the firm they are working with) and licence conditions etc. There is also a 5-year public disciplinary history in the register to show the public disciplinary actions taken by the SFC against a particular licensee. |
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