Mox, a virtual bank subsidiary of Standard Chartered, has added trading of Bitcoin and crypto ETFs to its investment platform.
The bank itself announced it on its social channels.
Mox: the first bank in Hong Kong to offer ETF on Bitcoin and crypto
Mox is a virtual bank based in Hong Kong, China.
With this initiative, it is the first bank in Hong Kong to directly offer its clients investment products related to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Mox is a virtual bank supported by Standard Chartered, in partnership with HKT, PCCW, and Trip.com, launched in September 2020.
It was one of the first banks to obtain the virtual bank license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in March 2019.
It offers a range of banking services aimed at a retail clientele, and already has more than half a million customers, equal to about 20% of the entire population of Hong Kong.
In particular, they offer their services through an app, Mox Bank by Standard Chartered, available for both Android and iPhone.
Thanks to their app, residents in Hong Kong can open a new account in just a few minutes for free, and set up their savings plan, earning interest every day. The bank also offers many other services.
The bank’s initiative: Bitcoin and crypto ETFs arrive for customers in Hong Kong
The bank has decided to simplify for its clients the expansion of their portfolios with crypto ETFs.
Their new service is designed to offer a convenient way to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency market through a regulated investment platform and without the complexities of managing a personal crypto portfolio.
The official statement from the bank reveals that almost a third of the people in Hong Kong have interacted with cryptocurrencies and that one in three cryptocurrency holders will likely switch their bank to one that offers cryptocurrency-related products.
Mox will offer access to a range of crypto ETFs authorized to be offered to retail investors in Hong Kong, through Mox Invest.
In this way, Mox Invest customers can easily invest in crypto ETFs using the same account they already use, and thus take a position on the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Mox Invest also declares to offer decidedly low commissions: 0.12% of the transaction value (minimum 30 HKD) for ETFs listed in Hong Kong and 0.01 USD per share (minimum 5 USD) for ETFs listed in the United States. Additionally, it does not impose any custody or management fees, apart from those charged by the companies managing the ETFs.
Hong Kong and the crypto
China has completely banned cryptocurrency trading for several years now.
However, in Hong Kong it is allowed.
Hong Kong now belongs to China 100%, but it is an autonomous territory with its own laws, although politically subject to the government of Beijing.
In fact, China has decided to use it as a testing ground to verify any issues related to crypto trading, given that in Mainland China years ago they banned it to prevent the Chinese from speculating on the markets and losing money.
To tell the truth, the Chinese have always been quite interested in the crypto market, so much so that even today several Chinese speculate or invest in cryptocurrencies using consenting foreign exchanges.
The fact that now even a real bank, albeit virtual, allows its retail customers to expose themselves to Bitcoin and Ethereum thanks to regulated products such as ETFs speaks volumes about how broad and deep this sort of crypto trading trial in Hong Kong is.
Standard Chartered
Behind Mox there is Standard Chartered.
It is a universal bank based in London, but it operates primarily in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
It was founded as far back as 1613, and it is listed on the London Stock Exchange. It is in all respects a public company, whose major shareholder is Temasek Holdings, owned by the government of Singapore.
Its name, Standard Chartered, comes from the 1969 merger of the Standard Bank of British South Africa with the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China.
It has approximately 83,000 employees worldwide, and a total revenue exceeding 18 billion dollars.
The Financial Stability Board considers it a systemically important bank.
The initiative of Mox therefore must be considered a high-level initiative in all respects.
The comment
The CEO of Mox, Barbaros Uygun, stated:
“As a digital bank with the vision of building a global benchmark from Hong Kong, Mox believes in staying a step ahead of the competition by being innovative and responsive to evolving markets. The addition of crypto ETFs to the Mox Invest platform allows our clients to securely access emerging asset classes, enabling them to explore new investment opportunities within the evolving crypto ecosystem, in a regulated and reliable environment, and in a safe and simple manner through the Mox app”.