'Wealth connect scheme could be widened further'
Hong Kong Monetary Authority chief executive Eddie Yue on Wednesday said authorities are looking into the feasibility of further widening a wealth connect scheme to attract large sums of capital from the Greater Bay Area to the SAR. Speaking at a wealth summit, Yue noted that the city’s de facto central bank upgraded the “Cross-boundary Wealth Management Connect Scheme” to a 2.0 version in February, to cover a greater variety of investment products and enabling more mainland investors to trade. Yue said the authorities are now studying whether the scheme can be upgraded to a 3.0 version, so the city can better cater to private banking customers. “It’s still in the early days, [but] we are talking to the industry very closely about what's needed. Is it the quota? Or is it the scope of products? Or is it the selling process?” he said. “For example, the quota. Currently, the individual quota is up to three million renminbi, but that's actually not quite enough for private bank clients. Is there a way to have a separate channel to capture the private bank clients?”  “The selling process has been a lot easier and smoother than before. But can it be further streamlined? Or can the marketing be made more active? Can the education be done better? I think there are still areas that we can look into in terms of improvements,” he said. Yue added that a significant increase in capital inflows from the north to the SAR was observed following the previous upgrade, and indicated that a further expansion could potentially attract more middle-class investors in the development zone who have the greatest need to diversify their assets. The scheme, launched in September 2021, was Beijing’s first tailor-made plan to boost sales and capital flows between Hong Kong, Macau and the nine other cities in the Greater Bay Area.