Interactive Brokers receives Hong Kong regulatory license to provide virtual asset trading to retail investors

David Friedland, managing director of the Asia-Pacific region of Interactive Brokers, an American broker, announced yesterday (24th) that the Hong Kong branch of Interactive Brokers has obtained local regulatory permission to provide virtual asset trading services to retail customers.
(Recap:Futu NiuNiu enters cryptocurrency!Panthertrade, the same group, applied for a VASP exchange license from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission）
(Background supplement:Quit Hong Kong permanently! BitgetX.hk “abandoned application” for VASP license, users must withdraw funds before 12/13）

beautifulDavid Friedland, managing director of the Asia-Pacific region of Interactive Brokers, a national securities company, yesterday (24th)LinkedIn(LinkedIn) announced that the Hong Kong branch of Interactive Brokers has obtained local regulatory permission to provide virtual asset trading services to retail customers.

In addition, David also said that they will first be allowed to provide Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions, and an official announcement will be released soon.

List of licensed exchanges in Hong Kong

It is worth mentioning that, affected by the fraud case involving exchange JPEX in September, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission began to officially disclose the status of applications for virtual asset platform licenses in late September.Related listincluding the list of licensed platforms, platforms that have applied for licenses, and completed platforms…etc.

Further reading:In addition to JPEX》 Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission reveals list of five other “suspicious” crypto exchanges

Currently, there are only two licensed exchanges in Hong Kong, namely OSL Exchange (OSL Digital Securities Co., Ltd.) and HashKey Exchange. Both of them must also conduct due diligence before listing virtual assets for trading to ensure that the relevant assets comply with the requirements of the proxy. The currency must be included in the standards and must be approved by the Securities Regulatory Commission, and sufficient information must be disclosed to investors.

In addition, exchanges currently in the application stage earlier this monthAdded two morea total of 7 exchanges have applied for licenses, including: BGE, HKbitEX (Hong Kong Digital Asset Exchange Group Co., Ltd.), HKVAX (Hong Kong Virtual Asset Exchange Co., Ltd.), VDX (Victory Digital Technology Co., Ltd.), Meex, PantherTrade (Cheetah Trading Co., Ltd.) and OKX, a well-known exchange with Chinese background.

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Hong Kong 01 broke the news earlier: JPEX registered in multiple countries as a suspected “human head company” and falsely advertised that it had relevant licenses