Speaker 1: Hong Kong's financial sector is roaring back to life. In
Speaker 1: the first half of the year, IPO surged, making the
Speaker 1: Cities Exchange number one globally for raising funds on the
Speaker 1: public market. The Hangsing Index is up twenty seven percent
Speaker 1: this year, led by biotech stocks. Hong Kong is also
Speaker 1: driving ahead to become a digital assets hub with the
Speaker 1: new stable coin ordinance. There's also billions in untapped funds
Speaker 1: in China. This has driven a surge and money into
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, with more family officers to manage that flow
Speaker 1: of capital and a new generation of wealth taking over
Speaker 1: risk remain. Of course, the property segment is still depressed
Speaker 1: and geopolitical headwinds persist. You're listening to ASI Eccentric from
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence. I'm John Lee in Hong Kong and this
Speaker 1: week we're speaking with Vivian cou CEO of Hong Kong's
Speaker 1: Private Wealth Management Association and previously ex head of compliance
Speaker 1: at Goldman Sach. She's also a crypto advocate and on
Speaker 1: the Government Web three task Force for regulatory matters. Vivian,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I wanted to start off by asking you like about
Speaker 1: Hong Kong. Are you surprised that the financial sector has
Speaker 1: rebounded so quickly this year because at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the year there was quite a lot of risks, uncertainty
Speaker 1: regarding geed, political and tariff risks, China's economy was still
Speaker 1: pretty slow.
Speaker 2: I would actually categorize it by talking about the comeback
Speaker 2: started before this year, and then we are seeing a
Speaker 2: gradual progression in terms of how things are recovering. We
Speaker 2: have an ANNU report which we prepare every year. Last
Speaker 2: year was the first year that we see the AUM
Speaker 2: number increasing after a couple of years. And then if
Speaker 2: you look at the statistic that came out from the
Speaker 2: SFC survey this year, which reflected in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: we see a very positive increase sort of double digit
Speaker 2: fifteen percent an increase year over years. So I felt
Speaker 2: that the comeback has started last year. Of course, you know,
Speaker 2: there are different factors that would affect how people are investing,
Speaker 2: how company is deploying funds, and how investors choose to invest.
Speaker 2: But I see that that is a progression of different
Speaker 2: things that's happening that's bringing the comeback.
Speaker 1: And just talking about some figures like I'm quoting the
Speaker 1: Boston Consulting Group. They estimate that the cross border wealth
Speaker 1: of Hong Kong is at two point seven trillion dollars.
Speaker 1: Now that's almost the same size. Or it's about to
Speaker 1: overtake Switzerland as the largest offshore WORLTH hub.
Speaker 2: But what's driving all this growth, Well, that's again that's
Speaker 2: probably not a new phenomenon that Hong Kong. It's kind
Speaker 2: of a position to take over Switzerland. You know, Switzerland
Speaker 2: being a historical wealth management hub, you know, have a
Speaker 2: lot that it's providing. But Hong Kong, I think a
Speaker 2: few things that have really changed this year, even post COVID.
Speaker 2: It's this role about super connector you see a more
Speaker 2: flow between Hong Kong, rcion the Middle East, including some
Speaker 2: that we participated in with the government, the delegations and
Speaker 2: even this year alone also Hong Kong, we worked with FSDC,
Speaker 2: they hosted some RCAN delegation. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: exchange in terms of how outside investment can come in
Speaker 2: and also you know locally, how our own investor can
Speaker 2: invest a broad So that's a lot of different discussion.
Speaker 2: Regimes you know, immigration scheme and the like that are
Speaker 2: facilitating all this discussion and investments cross flows.
Speaker 1: But how much of that money is coming from mainland China.
Speaker 2: Well, our reflected that majority. If we rank in all
Speaker 2: the different regions that we see opportunities on, mainland China
Speaker 2: is definitely on the top. But then our report last
Speaker 2: year talked about, you know, the next one would be
Speaker 2: Arzian like Arsian countries coming in the new corridors being built,
Speaker 2: and the third one is Middle East. So the majority
Speaker 2: of the wealth we see still coming from mainland, although
Speaker 2: there's been some challenges in terms of recovery and in
Speaker 2: terms of how the economy is like in China, if.
Speaker 1: We think of Hong Kong, traditionally the super rich, the
Speaker 1: wealth you have been from the property segment, Like if
Speaker 1: you look at the billionaires of Hong Kong, they're all
Speaker 1: property tycoons.
Speaker 2: But now you look.
Speaker 1: At you all the money coming in from China. You
Speaker 1: see the stock market, like biotech stocks doing really well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of tech IPOs, which industries is all
Speaker 1: this new wealth coming from.
Speaker 2: I think it has to do with the evolution of
Speaker 2: the different economy China, Hong Kong. Hong Kong, yeah, historically
Speaker 2: known for property development and then China to a lot
Speaker 2: of it. But if you see some of the newer
Speaker 2: generation next generation, a lot of them focuses on technology digital.
Speaker 2: And then again our report last year showed like biotech
Speaker 2: as a top sector that investor invests in virtual asset
Speaker 2: actually like class second and commodities. So I would characterize
Speaker 2: it with a change in investment appetite and or different
Speaker 2: generation they are interested in investing in different things. And
Speaker 2: talking more close on the Hong Kong IPO market, we
Speaker 2: also see some reforms in terms of the Hong Kong Exchange,
Speaker 2: how they're change a listing regime to facilitate you know,
Speaker 2: biotech companies in some of the listing chapters to facilitate
Speaker 2: easier listing in Hong Kong. So that certainly has helped.
Speaker 1: Okay, talking about IPOs, like I recently spoke to the
Speaker 1: Hong Kong Exchange and they said there's over two hundred
Speaker 1: companies waiting to be listed in Hong Kong. You know,
Speaker 1: with all this money being listed, is this being reinvested
Speaker 1: into the local economy.
Speaker 2: I can probably just talk around in terms of what
Speaker 2: I see on what's coming into wealth management. So as
Speaker 2: I mentioned earlier, it's clearly reflected the year over year,
Speaker 2: that's a pretty significant increase. Whether that comes from IPO
Speaker 2: or not. The wealth management market, a lot of the revenue,
Speaker 2: what we call transaction revenue, does come from IPO market,
Speaker 2: So I would say that, you know a portion of
Speaker 2: that is definitely coming in into wealth management. But again
Speaker 2: some listed here they might be looking for dual listing.
Speaker 2: You know, Hong Kong, it would be a reasonable place,
Speaker 2: would be very mature sort of finance infrastructure to be
Speaker 2: listening here. You know, we're a free market. And we
Speaker 2: also just got back in terms of the Investment Index
Speaker 2: Global index, I believe number three, like in the top three,
Speaker 2: and that's kind of moved up also in the recent
Speaker 2: few years. And if you look at women touched on
Speaker 2: this a bit later or not on family offices, you know,
Speaker 2: some of the family office that decide to come to
Speaker 2: Hong Kong also is because of the package of our
Speaker 2: immigration about that concession and other factors that they like
Speaker 2: to move to Hong Kong and come to invest here.
Speaker 1: Well let's talk about it now. So with all this
Speaker 1: new money coming into Hong Kong, is this being managed
Speaker 1: by like said, private banks, Is it like family officers.
Speaker 2: So the range of different investors that we see. Our
Speaker 2: association deals well with a private bank, so we kind
Speaker 2: of interact with them more. But we also work with
Speaker 2: family office Hong Kong for example. They are the ones
Speaker 2: that who goes out pretty aggressively. No mandate by the
Speaker 2: government with specific APIs on how many single family office
Speaker 2: for them to bring it in Hong Kong. We have
Speaker 2: a live example. We just admitted one of the pretty
Speaker 2: sitable US fund managing over eight hundred billion. They're a
Speaker 2: family sort of fund and they have establishment in Singapore,
Speaker 2: not yet in Hong Kong. They were actively looking at
Speaker 2: it and they just joined it as a member. So
Speaker 2: it kind of shows their confidence or at least they
Speaker 2: think that they're definitely opportunity that they feel there is
Speaker 2: in Hong Kong. Otherwise. We also work very closely in
Speaker 2: giving feedback on things like tax concession. You know, if
Speaker 2: you have family office coming, like if you look at
Speaker 2: the different brackets of the amount that will qualify for
Speaker 2: tax exemption family offices Hong Kong is lower than Singapore
Speaker 2: or Dubai, you know, we always get compared. These are
Speaker 2: two very calm and comparable in terms of jurisdiction that
Speaker 2: people compare us with.
Speaker 1: So in your position, you'd be able to see, like
Speaker 1: all the creation of new family officers, you're saying, there's
Speaker 1: still a lot to be created.
Speaker 2: Family office it can of a lose to them in
Speaker 2: a lot of sense. I think single family officers, you know,
Speaker 2: they're basically at the wealthy families. You know, they have
Speaker 2: our own team that manages the well and they're what
Speaker 2: you call the external asset managers. They are more usually
Speaker 2: like traditionally X banking professionals and that they have set
Speaker 2: up their own shop to manage money. So they're kind
Speaker 2: of two different sets, the single family officers. If you
Speaker 2: look at the latest Hong Kong report also the tracking
Speaker 2: numbers of how many I believe even this year alone
Speaker 2: there maybe fifty like so far, I think fifty that
Speaker 2: has he either KNW that's been set up or is
Speaker 2: expanding their presence in Hong Kong. So those are all
Speaker 2: very positive.
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Speaker 1: And Shair I wanted to talk about the opportunity from
Speaker 1: mainland China. Now that's been a traditional source of the
Speaker 1: fundraising for family officers and wealth management. Like how much
Speaker 1: more is there to go?
Speaker 2: That's like a million dollar question. I think some of
Speaker 2: the challenges hasn't really changed, probably in decades. It's, you know,
Speaker 2: the ability to move funds offshore because a lot of
Speaker 2: these wealthy individuals, you know, they probably are very wealthy
Speaker 2: already in China, but you know, how are they able
Speaker 2: to do they already have funds offshore. That's usually a
Speaker 2: big factor. I mean, if they are wealthy early on
Speaker 2: they decided, you know, they want to expand internationally in
Speaker 2: different businesses, they probably already have funds offshore. But the
Speaker 2: Connect scheme, for example, you know, the wealth connect scheme,
Speaker 2: which is a huge focus of our industry. We have
Speaker 2: been loving for some time that the quota right now
Speaker 2: doesn't really surface purpose yet because there's only three million
Speaker 2: dollars in rem and Bee, and if China consider revising
Speaker 2: the limits or make the next enhancement, we are strongly
Speaker 2: advocating that it should be a much higher number because
Speaker 2: the sort of general account opening sides or even professional
Speaker 2: investor is at a one million US level. So we
Speaker 2: would hope that's something that we can aspire to work
Speaker 2: with the regulators and the government on.
Speaker 1: We did sort of touch on like the next generation
Speaker 1: of wealth. There's been a lot of publicity on how
Speaker 1: much wealth is being I guess like transferred from like
Speaker 1: the founders to the second sometimes the third generation. You
Speaker 1: know they are often Gen Z or millennials. Tell us
Speaker 1: about this segment, how the needs different.
Speaker 2: It's a great question because even within the association itself,
Speaker 2: never a clear definition of what the next gen is.
Speaker 2: Next gen is usually, you know, the most common character
Speaker 2: you characterize them with more tax savvy. That's why we
Speaker 2: in our report last year, the one to five million
Speaker 2: segment was one that we think would have more explosive growth,
Speaker 2: primarily because they can be served by banks. But then
Speaker 2: a lot of banks now actually also have tach plat
Speaker 2: where you provide technology that I think those younger generations
Speaker 2: can invest themselves, so some of other setup like robot
Speaker 2: advisors or tech companies that they are more and more
Speaker 2: that serves with that segment. So we felt that that
Speaker 2: segment will have more ways to invest and also some
Speaker 2: of them, particularly next gen for wealthy families, they look
Speaker 2: at impact investing or you know, is what they do
Speaker 2: meaningful because they are very wealthy. But how they want
Speaker 2: to spend the funds. Do they want to invest in
Speaker 2: things that would be more climate friendly because they truly
Speaker 2: believe that in the whatever twenty years, if more damage
Speaker 2: is done to the planet, then that affects the way
Speaker 2: that they live. So they have a different mentality into
Speaker 2: how they want to spend money and invest.
Speaker 1: And are they also more amenable to sort of new products.
Speaker 1: I'd imagine the old generation would be much more amenable
Speaker 1: to like the sixty forty equity on portfolio. But are
Speaker 1: they more willing to invest in things like in a
Speaker 1: digital asset.
Speaker 2: That's certainly a big trend because this was probably a
Speaker 2: couple of years back. But when they look at the
Speaker 2: age group that obviously is most savvy or most interesting
Speaker 2: in digital asset is usually like below thirty five. But
Speaker 2: I see that changing with this cycle, you see much
Speaker 2: more institution participating in the virtual asset space. That's why
Speaker 2: when you look closer to Hong Kong about Stable Point Ordinance,
Speaker 2: about the virtual asset framework the SFC put out as fire,
Speaker 2: you know, some of these framework is really to kind
Speaker 2: of make traditional finance and the financial technology sector converge.
Speaker 2: So I see that now there will be more offerings
Speaker 2: that would be more simple, that you would allow a
Speaker 2: more layman to invest in. I think this cycle that
Speaker 2: would probably change as a trend that in the past,
Speaker 2: primarily it will be younger generation investing in virtual assets.
Speaker 2: But I see that depending on what country, because more
Speaker 2: undeveloped country usually you have a higher adoption. So the
Speaker 2: unbanked population usually have a higher interest in virtual assets
Speaker 2: because you just need a computer, a phone, you don't
Speaker 2: really need a back account to transact a lot of
Speaker 2: them transaction tokens. And then more unstable countries also seem
Speaker 2: to have higher adoption.
Speaker 1: So Vivian obviously the CEO of Hong Kong's Private Wealth
Speaker 1: Management Association, But as we mentioned previously, you do have
Speaker 1: another HAD and you are on the Government Web three
Speaker 1: task Force. Were you intimately involved in the stable coin
Speaker 1: audience that just passed in August.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say I was intimately involved. We definitely gave feedback.
Speaker 2: And then this goes before PWMA. So before PWMA, I
Speaker 2: was running another association which helped crypto companies to do advocacy.
Speaker 2: So when I met with the HMA, they said we
Speaker 2: were the first crypto association that went with them, and
Speaker 2: that was when they first started thinking about stable point.
Speaker 2: I'm guessing that had to go back to prob the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two twenty three because at that point the
Speaker 2: regulatory framework wasn't as developed. For example, the SFC and
Speaker 2: the AMY are still looking at what they will respectively
Speaker 2: be responsible for stable coin. You know, I think people
Speaker 2: understand that it will be used for payment rails, but
Speaker 2: then there's a big suitability aspect as in, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a suitable for retail professional So at that time
Speaker 2: it wasn't as developed, should I say, But fast forward,
Speaker 2: you know, I think the whole Hong Kong got very excited. Also,
Speaker 2: I think that drew on what's happening in the US
Speaker 2: as well, with the Genius Act, which also focuses on
Speaker 2: like giving licensing for sable cooin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the US Genius Act was passed in July,
Speaker 1: and I believe just a couple of weeks later, Hong
Speaker 1: Kong passed the stable coin audience I believe on the
Speaker 1: first of August. So it's it was really quick. I
Speaker 1: think the market was really surprised at how fast Hong
Speaker 1: Kong moved on this, Like what is this signal to
Speaker 1: the market that you know, Hong Kong wants to be
Speaker 1: a leader in this space, like tell us.
Speaker 2: Well, the government is loud and clear on that point.
Speaker 2: They want to build Hong Kong into a digital ass
Speaker 2: at hub. And the appetite you put a framework on
Speaker 2: table coin has been in the pipe, as I mentioned,
Speaker 2: you know, since we first interacted, because there was an
Speaker 2: early consultation that came out on that and there was
Speaker 2: a sandbox that quite a number of companies had gone
Speaker 2: into in terms of stable coin, but it was, as
Speaker 2: you said, not until August where the sort of legal
Speaker 2: framework came out. Right now, I think you probably saw
Speaker 2: HAMA and SFC put out also an alert telling people
Speaker 2: not to get so excited about stable coin, because of
Speaker 2: course there's a lot of potential. You know, IMF had
Speaker 2: a report just said that twenty twenty four the two
Speaker 2: trillion of stable point volume. So that's a big number
Speaker 2: that people are excited about. But stable cooin is not
Speaker 2: like bitcoin, for example, or ethereum. It's fairly it's not
Speaker 2: going to go up the way it does. And then
Speaker 2: if you look at the requirements as well, it's fairly
Speaker 2: difficult to comply. And I think that's done for purpose
Speaker 2: with investive protection in mind. So I'm sure HMA doesn't
Speaker 2: just want to give the license to any company. So
Speaker 2: one of the ones that are our member for Cena Charter,
Speaker 2: for example, they're the first one that now said they're
Speaker 2: going to issue a Hong Kong dollar back stable coin
Speaker 2: with a JV with Animalka, with Hong Kong Telecom. So
Speaker 2: some of those larger brands, more reputable firms, I'm sure
Speaker 2: actually would be one of the first batch that that
Speaker 2: get our license.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just literally interviewed Animoka a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: ago on stable coins. But I wanted to get your view.
Speaker 1: Is there much of a difference between the rules and
Speaker 1: laws of say the Genius Act versus Hong Kong's stable
Speaker 1: Cooin Ordinance.
Speaker 2: Oh huge, Yes, there are two different two very different frames,
Speaker 2: although you know they both touch on stable coins. So
Speaker 2: number one, if you look at things like the capital
Speaker 2: and the liquiditive requirement, Hong Kong has very specific requirements
Speaker 2: that what needs to be backed by and it can
Speaker 2: be in different currency. You know, REM and B would
Speaker 2: be one of them. Can be on US dollars, you
Speaker 2: can be Hong Kong dollars Genius Act for the US
Speaker 2: one you can only denominated in US dollars and I
Speaker 2: won't sort of go through odo technicalities, but they are
Speaker 2: a different level of regulation for the Genius Acts. So
Speaker 2: if you are sort of a bigger setup, then you
Speaker 2: get regulated at the federal level. It was a smaller
Speaker 2: one that you get regulated by the state level. It
Speaker 2: kind of draws on interesting questions on would the traditional
Speaker 2: banks be applying for those you know, who would be
Speaker 2: the first one? You know, Circle ANETA would be the
Speaker 2: first two. That's because in circulation right now in terms
Speaker 2: of volume, but they're well known, you know Circle when listed,
Speaker 2: so they're different regime and the Genius Act it also
Speaker 2: got rolled out quite quickly. But the whole infrastructure that
Speaker 2: the US is developing is going to be a multi
Speaker 2: year long infrastructure so for people to even apply and
Speaker 2: look at all the jurisdictional consideration on the size, you know,
Speaker 2: on volume and whatnot, it will take some time. Whereas
Speaker 2: I kind of see Hong Kong would have some major
Speaker 2: player that would get licensed in the shorter term.
Speaker 1: So when do you think these licenses will be announced?
Speaker 2: I think that's more of ahma question. But they would
Speaker 2: be incentifized, you know, if those more putable firms can
Speaker 2: meet the requirements to kind of put them in action,
Speaker 2: because that would be a great branding opportunity for Hong Kong,
Speaker 2: you know, to be one of the first one who
Speaker 2: approved like a sable coin issuer out of Hong Kong
Speaker 2: and also on Hong Kong dollar nominated for example. So
Speaker 2: I don't think it's going to be years. I mean
Speaker 2: you talking about.
Speaker 1: Months, and with these stable coins in Hong Kong, there
Speaker 1: have to be one hundred percent back by that feared currency, right, Well.
Speaker 2: There's a range of different things. I mean, it cand
Speaker 2: of get listed out in the requirement, so it can
Speaker 2: be US treasury, it can be things that are liquid
Speaker 2: and safe. Because if you remember Luna. I don't know
Speaker 2: if everybody remember Luna like I did, but the last
Speaker 2: big stable coin crash called Luna, which you know went
Speaker 2: down ninety percent, so people realize tablecoin actually isn't that stable.
Speaker 2: After that, everybody drew reference that was l go back
Speaker 2: stable coin that all the different jurisdiction at least a
Speaker 2: larger one, and Hong Kong included. They would only consider
Speaker 2: a list of very narrow range of what can be backed,
Speaker 2: and it has to be liquid, it has to be
Speaker 2: so it's only a very narrow range of what it
Speaker 2: can be used to back, viet being one of them.
Speaker 1: And is that more stringent than the US genie sect.
Speaker 2: I think it's different. It's kind of comparable and different.
Speaker 2: I think the idea would be there comparable because it
Speaker 2: still needs to be back by something that has liquidity
Speaker 2: and safe. But the US has a broader poor things
Speaker 2: that you can use to back the stable cooin.
Speaker 1: Okay, listening to the comments from the Trump administration and
Speaker 1: in particular Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, now one of the
Speaker 1: aims of the genie sect seems to be to maintain
Speaker 1: the hegemony of the US dollar, to make sure that
Speaker 1: you know US dollar is dominant in transactions in trade finance.
Speaker 1: What's Hong Kong's angle.
Speaker 2: Well, there are a few different angles you can look at.
Speaker 2: I think in just looking at as a payment mail,
Speaker 2: you know it has fastest settlement, cheaper all that is
Speaker 2: actually kind of a positive thing. But people also look
Speaker 2: at you know, if I want to achieve that, do
Speaker 2: I have to use stable coin? Can I use other
Speaker 2: tokens to achieve that? That's why I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people looking at should we tokenize the money market
Speaker 2: once or do we use savil point to back it?
Speaker 2: So of course saverle point, if you use it under
Speaker 2: properly regulated is sure then it's safer because as you said,
Speaker 2: it's one for one back. The volatility is supposed to
Speaker 2: be much lower than if you used to token, but
Speaker 2: it largely depends on how the circulation is. You know,
Speaker 2: where you can use it. It's a bit like you know,
Speaker 2: if I create own token, it can only be used
Speaker 2: in my own company. What's the point of it? So
Speaker 2: the Hong kongole Bank, stable Point, or even with other denominator,
Speaker 2: the idea is you can break through a lot of
Speaker 2: this cross border payment rail or other things that you
Speaker 2: could you know, typically would need days or weeks to
Speaker 2: get a transfer or get charge a lot to do.
Speaker 1: Look this is and this is a true story. Last year,
Speaker 1: it once took me like five working days to send
Speaker 1: money from Hong Kong to Australia. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: tell you which bank that was, but but Vivian used
Speaker 1: to be a banker for many years, so you do
Speaker 1: have experience in this space. Do you think these utile assets,
Speaker 1: stable coins they intermediate the banking industry.
Speaker 2: Well, it's already happening. But one thing I point out
Speaker 2: which I find interesting is the whole notion of the
Speaker 2: centralized finance crypto was that it was going to disrupt, disintermediate.
Speaker 2: But in a lot of ways. If you look at
Speaker 2: things that are happening now, things are converging. I feel
Speaker 2: that they complement each other rather than try to push
Speaker 2: the other out of business. But of course, you know,
Speaker 2: disrupting meaning that the traditional needs to change otherwise they
Speaker 2: lose a fair bit of business. Just as I was
Speaker 2: mentioning earlier, you know some of these robodvisory or tach
Speaker 2: platform is disrupting maybe the lower end of the private
Speaker 2: banking market. And crypto and again distable coins, some of
Speaker 2: these payment rails probably are disrupting credit cards Let's say
Speaker 2: I pay users stable coin now, and then do I
Speaker 2: still need credit cards to be getting credit if it
Speaker 2: is faster cheaper, so master and least that's why they
Speaker 2: start at having save a coin on circulation. Now you
Speaker 2: can you can actually use some specific credit cards which
Speaker 2: are crypto friendly to be paying for things.
Speaker 1: What about other types of tokenized assets, like do you
Speaker 1: see that you know really growing?
Speaker 2: That depends on what it is, because the most commonly
Speaker 2: thing that's being tokenized now are things that money market funds.
Speaker 2: I also had a question myself. Money market fund is
Speaker 2: very liquid already, you know, why do you need to
Speaker 2: tokenize it? But when I look at the costs, it's safe.
Speaker 2: And also it can be used as collateral, like if
Speaker 2: you can immediately settle, like you know, you can actually
Speaker 2: cut out some of these processes. The amount it is
Speaker 2: safe is pretty phenomenal, and that is something that's easily understood.
Speaker 2: But not all tokenized quote unquote assets or instrument it's
Speaker 2: going to be better than non tokenized one Robin he
Speaker 2: for example, they look in tokenized security sell a lot,
Speaker 2: but trading is securities in a tokenized form is very different,
Speaker 2: you know from trading a stock you don't have voting power,
Speaker 2: you might not have a lot of avenue that is
Speaker 2: listing that specific token, and they're just different considerations. So
Speaker 2: people should just understand the difference. Just putting a token
Speaker 2: azeed wrapper around it doesn't mean that, you know, it
Speaker 2: is a word three and it's definitely better than the
Speaker 2: non tognized version.
Speaker 1: We've talked about a lot of things we've talked about,
Speaker 1: like the IPOs coming back to Hong Kong, all the
Speaker 1: wealth management products driving the growth of family offices, and also,
Speaker 1: you know, Hong Kong's in the digital landscape. Where do
Speaker 1: you see Hong Kong going in the next sort of
Speaker 1: say five years, Like how is the city going to change?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm born and bred from Hong Kong. I have
Speaker 2: an extremely positive view of Hong Kong. I just think
Speaker 2: Hong Kong has a lot going for it. But Hong
Speaker 2: Kong probably needs your reset. You know, we are a
Speaker 2: very strong financial center, we still are, but I think
Speaker 2: it's just kind of looking at where the opportunitylize on
Speaker 2: how to capitalize it. Why the government decided to build
Speaker 2: Hong Kong as a word three or digital asset HALP
Speaker 2: is because some of the opportunities that they see that
Speaker 2: Hong Kong can really capitalize being very cootutions and to China.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of tech talent out there, you know,
Speaker 2: Cyberport Science Park. I think all this tech development can
Speaker 2: really help develop more solutions that are Hong Kong based.
Speaker 2: They have a big incubation site and on the virtual
Speaker 2: asset side because we move so fast in the last
Speaker 2: couple of years in coming up with frameworks, and China
Speaker 2: investor also has interest if they have money afterhore to
Speaker 2: be investing in Hong Kong. So we're in a very
Speaker 2: strategically well positioned region to be capitalizing all that. But
Speaker 2: you know, having that said, there's also a lot of competition,
Speaker 2: you know, Dubai and sort of Saudi and some of
Speaker 2: these other regions have been named again and again about oh,
Speaker 2: are we kind of losing business losing clients. I don't
Speaker 2: actually see those as mutually exclusive. As I said, it
Speaker 2: probably is complementary. A client can probably have booking centers
Speaker 2: in multiple jurisdiction, So they're just going to look at
Speaker 2: like where the money flows, where you have best infrastructure,
Speaker 2: where you have favorable government policy. And I feel Hong
Speaker 2: Kong as developing fast in terms of making changes, particularly
Speaker 2: post COVID, to be capitalizing on all of that.
Speaker 1: Great, well, that's a fantastic way to end the show. Vivian,
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing your insights.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Age Eccentric from Bloomberg Intelligence. I'm
Speaker 1: John Lee in Hong Kong. You can listen to all
Speaker 1: our episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
Speaker 1: And this podcast was produced and edited by Clara Chen.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.