Hong Kong working to allow perpetual contracts, chief regulator says

HONG KONG — Financial regulators in Hong Kong are going to unveil a framework for trading platforms to offer perpetual contracts, the head of the region’s Securities and Futures Commission said Wednesday.

Brokers in Hong Kong will soon be able to provide financing to clients backed by bitcoin BTC$66,792.52 and ether ETH$1,948.79 and platforms will be able to offer market-making through independent units, said Julia Leung, the CEO of Hong Kong’s SFC at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference.

While the SFC plans to share more details later, the moves are part of the regulator’s broader push to let regulated firms offer more products and services, Leung said, following on its 2025 roadmap which included an effort to develop the local crypto market.

The SFC has already published the conclusions from its consultation on custody and related issues, but these new initiatives are focused on continuing to develop these markets in Hong Kong, including with novel products like perpetual futures contracts.

“We will be publicizing a high-level framework for platforms to be offering perpetual contracts,” she said.

These products will only be available for institutional investors, not retail clients, at this time, she said, and the framework will focus on risks. Platforms seeking to offer these products will need to be able to manage those risks, “and it also has to be very fair to the customers.”

On the other initiatives, Leung said that the SFC will start sharing further details soon.

“We will allow brokers to provide financing to clients with strong … credit profiles, and the collateral will be backed by both securities as well as virtual assets,” she said. “Because virtual assets … many of them are very volatile, so we’ll start with two that will be eligible as collateral, bitcoin and ether.”

Platforms looking to engage in market-making will need to make sure they have strong conflict-of-interest rules and independent market-making units, she said.