The Monetary Authority today announced its list of 19 Southbound and 16 Northbound banks in Hong Kong which are eligible to launch Cross-boundary Wealth Management Connect (Cross-boundary WMC) services.

The participating banks, together with their corresponding Mainland partner banks whose eligibility for providing pilot Cross-boundary WMC services has been confirmed by Mainland regulatory authorities, can start offering Cross-boundary WMC services tomorrow at the earliest.

Monetary Authority Chief Executive Eddie Yue said: “It gives me great pleasure to see that a number of Hong Kong banks have completed the necessary preparatory work and are ready to start providing Cross-boundary WMC services.

“Considering that it will be the first time for retail investors to conduct cross-boundary investments, we will closely monitor the operation of the Cross-boundary WMC and step up investor education and investor protection work together with the industry.”

The authority will collaborate with the industry to explore enhancement measures with the goal of providing more growth opportunities for Hong Kong’s banking and wealth management industry, he added.

As set out in the Implementation Arrangements for the Cross-boundary WMC Pilot Scheme in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area enacted by the authority on September 10, banks in Hong Kong which intend to start Cross-boundary WMC activities should put in place systems, internal control measures and complete relevant systems testing and submit a self-assessment to the authority.

The authority noted that it will continue to process the remaining self-assessments and update from time to time the list of eligible Hong Kong banks on its webpage.