The Securities and Futures Ordinance (Cap. 571) is Hong Kong’s principal statute for securities and futures market regulation. As of June 17, 2026, it is in force and should be treated as the statutory base for the Securities and Futures Commission’s supervision of regulated activities, market infrastructure, public offers of investments, market misconduct, and disclosure obligations. SFC commencement materials state that the SFO was enacted on March 13, 2002 and commenced on April 1, 2003; it consolidated and modernized 10 existing ordinances governing Hong Kong’s securities and futures markets.
How the SFO fits Hong Kong crypto regulation
The SFO is not a crypto-specific statute. Its crypto relevance comes from the way Hong Kong treats a virtual asset, token, or tokenized product when it falls within SFO categories such as securities, interests in a collective investment scheme, offers of investments, or regulated activity. A token may be outside the SFO for one activity but inside the SFO for another, depending on its rights, structure, and the conduct being carried on.
For trading platforms, the SFC presents the perimeter alongside the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (Cap. 615). Centralized virtual asset trading platforms carrying on business in Hong Kong, or actively marketing to Hong Kong investors, are required to be licensed and regulated by the SFC under the SFO and/or AMLO. Under the SFO regime, a platform providing trading in security tokens through an automated matching engine, with custody ancillary to trading, is mapped to Type 1 regulated activity, dealing in securities, and Type 7 regulated activity, providing automated trading services.
Key provisions for digital assets and tokenization
- SFC authority and market objectives: The SFO establishes the SFC’s market-facing objectives, including fair, efficient, transparent, and orderly securities and futures markets, investor protection, market integrity, and systemic-risk reduction.
- Licensing and registration: Part V and Schedule 5 underpin licensing for regulated activities. For crypto businesses, this matters most where services involve security tokens, tokenized securities, automated trading services, securities advice, or asset management.
- Offers of investments: Part IV is relevant when tokenized securities or other digital securities are offered to the Hong Kong public. Public offers may require authorization or another available exemption, depending on the structure.
- Market misconduct and enforcement: The SFO provides the statutory framework for misconduct, investigations, disciplinary action, and market-integrity enforcement in securities and futures markets.
Tokenized securities guidance
The SFC’s November 2023 circular explains that tokenized securities are traditional financial instruments, such as bonds or funds, that are securities under Schedule 1 to the SFO and use distributed ledger technology or similar technology in their lifecycle. The circular states that existing legal and regulatory requirements for traditional securities continue to apply to tokenized securities, including the offers-of-investments regime under Part IV of the SFO and intermediary conduct requirements for distribution, advice, management, and secondary market trading.
The circular also frames tokenization as a technology layer rather than a standalone exemption from securities regulation. Intermediaries are expected to consider ownership, technology, custody, cybersecurity, settlement, and disclosure risks, while applying existing requirements to the underlying securities activity. This makes the SFO a central reference point for tokenized funds, security-token dealing, and digital securities distribution in Hong Kong.
Status, timeline, and next developments
The SFO has been operative since April 1, 2003. Its core status is therefore “In force” for CryptoSlate taxonomy purposes. The ordinance should be read with subsidiary legislation, SFC codes and guidelines, VATP licensing materials, AMLO, and newer virtual-asset policy materials where a business model involves both security tokens and non-security tokens.
As of May 26, 2026, the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau and the SFC had published consultation conclusions on proposed regimes for virtual asset advisory and management service providers. The official release states that the proposed advisory and management regimes would align with Type 4 and Type 9 regulated activities under the SFO, respectively, and that the government and SFC were targeting introduction of a bill within 2026. That proposal is not itself an amendment in force, but it is a relevant watch item for future SFO-linked virtual asset regulation.