Hong Kong is central to China’s capital markets ecosystem, but is a digital currency?

Written by John Orchard, Chief Executive Officer of OMFIF

Western visitors returning to China for face-to-face meetings will find a country as keen to attract outside investment as it is to develop a self-sufficient financial and technological ecosystem. Hong Kong’s role in this complex process seems more important than before; it has noticed a marked outflowing of wealth management operations to Singapore and is now putting together a well-funded campaign to try to reverse the trend. To hear this from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, InvestHK and others based in the special administrative region isn’t surprising. To hear it from the People’s Bank of China and the major Chinese banks perhaps is. The clarity and uniformity of the message sounded like Chinese government policy. Why? The wealth management migration is attributed to political risk, as some high-level financiers have disappeared in Hong Kong and found themselves helping Chinese authorities with their enquiries. Departing expats grumble about the national security law, although a…