Crypto companies’ applications to operate in Hong Kong following its push to reinstate itself as a crypto hub have been piling up, but these companies are finding it difficult to do something as basic as open a bank account.
Applicants told CoinDesk that just eight officers at the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) are handling around 80 applications, and even licensed firms are running into difficulties when it comes to bank accounts.
“This probably would have been a different story six or nine months ago,” Amy Yu, APAC CEO for crypto bank SEBA, told CoinDesk.
Hong Kong has become a jurisdiction that companies are considering, after regulators relaxed their opposition to the sector, even as other countries look more critically at crypto.
