Hong Kong’s financial watchdog, the Securities and Futures Commission, is gearing up to beef up its cryptocurrency oversight.
In their budget proposal for 2025-26, they’re planning to add 15 new positions to their team, with eight of those roles dedicated specifically to keeping an eye on virtual assets.
Creating a business-friendly environment
The SFC wants to sharpen its skills in monitoring market activity, conducting enforcement investigations, and ensuring that crypto players are playing by the rules.
This move comes as Hong Kong wants to solidify its status as a top destination for crypto innovation, and the SFC believes these new hires will boost market surveillance and tackle the challenges that come with licensing and supervision.
Up until now, the SFC has been relying on experts who are pros in traditional finance to manage the wild world of virtual assets.
But as we all know, crypto is a whole different ballgame, and it’s clear they need some specialized expertise to keep up with the complexities of this market.
New budget for the bureau
The SFC’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year is set at around $332.4 million, which is a 7.2% bump from last year.
A chunk of this increase is due to higher personnel costs, including an average salary hike of around 2.1% and those shiny new positions.
The SFC has acknowledged that their current oversight capacity has been stretched thin, as last year they only managed to conduct on-site inspections for about 200 licensed entities when they were targeting for 300.
So, these expansion plans are all about tightening supervision and ramping up inspections of licensed crypto firms in Hong Kong.
Scams are everywhere
The SFC has already been busy improving its oversight in the crypto market. Not so long ago, they uncovered a slew of scam platforms pretending to be linked to HashKey, a legitimate cryptocurrency trading platform in Hong Kong.
HashKey issued a warning stating that these fraudulent sites were trying to mislead clients by using slightly altered domain names or variations of their official website address.
“We have no connection with these fraudulent websites.”
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