The upcoming virtual assets service provider regime for Hong Kong

July 2022

On 24 June 2022, the Hong Kong Government published in the Gazette the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Bill 2022 (the ‘Amendment Bill’). To combat emerging money laundering and terrorist financing (‘ML/TF’) risks posed by the increasing adoption of virtual assets (‘VA’), one of the main focuses of the Amendment Bill is to introduce a new licensing regime (‘VASP Licensing Regime’) for virtual asset service providers (‘VASPs’).

In this article, we undertake a review of the VASP Licensing Regime and share some of our insights on its potential impact on the VA market and its participants in Hong Kong.