Authority to expand wealth management program in Greater Bay Area

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said on Thursday it is looking to widen the products eligible via the Southbound scheme of the Wealth Management Connect program in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, potentially incorporating stock-focused products.

Eddie Yue, chief executive of the HKMA, said in Beijing on Thursday that adding non-complex financial products that primarily invest in stocks into the scheme will facilitate investors' risk diversification.

Yue said the HKMA is also considering easing the investor suitability requirements for the program to attract more participation and enable an easier process of product sales under the scheme.

Stressing that deepening the connect program's mechanisms with the onshore financial market is one of HKMA's priorities, Yu said efforts are also being made to facilitate the investment of US dollar-denominated bonds via southbound trading of the Bond Connect program and introduce offshore futures of China's government bonds at an early date.

Also on Thursday, Pan Gongsheng, Party secretary of the People's Bank of China, met with Yue and discussed topics of reinforcing Hong Kong's status as an international financial center and deepening financial cooperation, the PBOC said in a statement.

The PBOC and HKMA are both members of the mBridge project, which explores multilateral cooperation regarding international payments using central bank digital currencies.

Yue said he hopes the mBridge project will launch a minimum viable product in the first half of next year, initially focusing on cross-border CBDC trade payments, adding that the mBridge project has the potential of facilitating easier and faster cross-border payments using local currencies.