Page 63 - 期貨和衍生品行業監管動態（2024年6月刊）
P. 63
期貨和衍生品行業監管動態
Commission to support the city’s market developments, the SFC is making efforts
with all parties to launch these measures, in order to deepen Mainland-Hong Kong
mutual market access. It is also striving to connect with new markets to diversify the
sources of the city’s capital and listings. Senior management’s first official visit to the
Middle East earlier in June has paved the way for further regional market
collaboration.
The flagship Stock Connect scheme, which celebrates its 10th anniversary, has
recorded a 20-fold advance in average daily trading since 2014. ETF Connect has also
spurred overall ETF market turnover since its mid-2022 launch, boosting ETFs’ share
to 14% of Main Board turnover in the first quarter of 2024 from 5% in 2021. Through
its debut year, Swap Connect, which strengthens the city’s role as an offshore risk
management hub, has seen its overseas participants more than double and average
daily turnover quadruple.
To lead financial market transformation via technology and scale up the Web3
ecosystem in Hong Kong, the SFC has authorised the city’s first tokenised retail gold
product, as well as Asia’s first batch of virtual asset (VA) spot ETFs for retail access.
These ETFs have a total market capitalisation of more than US$300 million with
orderly trading and decent daily turnover since their launch. The SFC has made sure
investors are protected through wide-ranging safeguards to foster a resilient VA
ecosystem.
Tremendous enforcement efforts have also been made to uphold market integrity.
Following the SFC’s investigation, individuals involved in a highly sophisticated
market manipulation case were convicted in a landmark High Court jury trial in May.
The criminal prosecution marks the first time that an offence under the Securities and
Futures Ordinance has been tried at the Court of First Instance. Separately, a case
against two suspected core members of a large-scale ramp and dump syndicate was
transferred to the District Court following the SFC’s investigation. This marks the
49
