SFC licensing and compliance hints – Dec 2012

Licensing Information Booklet: The SFC revised the Licensing Information Booklet in November. In addition to revising the content relating to Type 10 regulated activity (providing credit rating services) and the SFC’s online portal, it made the following clarifications:

• technically speaking individual licence applications are submitted not just by the individual but also by the proposed licensed company because the licensed company has to verify that the information provided by the individual is “true, complete and correct”. The SFC will also typically deal with the licensed company in relation to an individual application (Paras 7.4 -7.6)
• in order to encourage use of the SFC Online Portal, the SFC has indicated that processing times may be faster if applications are submitted via the Portal (Para 7.11)
• when applying for a replacement of a lost licensing certificate, a statutory declaration must be submitted – the SFC has removed the option of submitting a police report (Para 8.18)
• the booklet makes it clear that all “significant” changes to the nature of business, types of service and business plan must be notified to the SFC (Table 4)

Investor Education Centre: The IEC was established in November 2012 and so the SFC’s InvestEd site has been replaced with the IEC’s website http://www.hkiec.hk/iec/en/html/section/index.html. There is an email subscription service for receiving IEC updates.