Regulations

Hong Kong

An individual or a corporate who wants to provide foreign exchange service and/or remittance services in Hong Kong is required to get the Money Service Operator (“MSO”) Licence granted by the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department, under the “Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance” (Chapter 615 of Hong Kong laws).

The Licence support not only traditional foreign exchange and remittance services as you can easily access to in the street in Hong Kong, but it also supports fin-tech companies providing payment services to e-merchants, e.g., receiving proceeds from eBay/Amazon on behalf of the e-merchants and then transfer the proceeds to the e-merchants’ designated bank accounts around the world (including China).

Singapore

The Singapore government pays significant effort to develop the city as the most important financial hub in the world. On 28th January 2020, the new Payment Services Act became effective that change the payment services landscape of the city.

The Payment Service Provider (“PSP”) Licence In addition to the pre-existing money changers and remittance agents, payment service providers, virtual account issuers and virtual asset service providers are also covered by the PSP Licence. The regulator, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), will also extend its coverage to merchant acquisition services, issuance of virtual accounts and services relating to digital payment token (DPT), including the operation of virtual asset exchange platform.

Service 1 - Licensing Application

Since our company set up in 2013, we have already assisted over 60 clients from Hong Kong, Singapore and all over the world to obtain Hong Kong MSO Licence and/or Singapore PSP Licence. Our team has solid legal, accounting and financial institution background, so the key to success lies in our legal knowledge, business connection and communication skill with regulators. In the course of licence application, we work with our clients to:

• understand the market trend of money service and payment service, the cost of operation in the city, and the regulator expectation over the business development. (e.g., the sustainability of the business, the sufficiency of the recourses and etc.)

• develop a practical business plan that not only satisfies the “marking scheme” of the relevant regulator, but also build up the framework within which the business is running in future.

• effectively deal with regulator’s challenge and enquiries.

• master relevant legal, regulatory and business requirements, including but not limited to the needs of applying for working visa, company secretaries services and accounting services in the city.

• build up a sustainable anti-money laundering and compliance supporting system, to which the relevant regulators consider as the core factor for licence application as well as licence renewal in due course.

Service 2 - Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”)

When a regulator or enforcement agent identifies an entity who fails to perform mandatory anti-money laundering obligation, the entity will not only be derived of its business licence, but its owner and management will also face civil claims and criminal consequence.

Licence owners have to present well-prepared internal AML documents to regulator for licence renewal. Such internal AML documents shall also presented to peers and banking partners for the purpose of opening and maintenance business relationship with each other.

We provide full range of AML support, including the preparation of tailor-made customer due-diligence/account opening forms, independent AML audit report, sanctions screening services, suspicious transactions consulting services and all relevant civil and criminal legal advice.

Service 3 - Regulatory Inspection and Ad-hoc Request

In situation where licence holder is summoned by regulator for regulatory inspection, our professional team can provide full support for the licence holder, including but not limited to attending the inspection with or on behalf of the licence holder, reviewing all relevant documents and information before the inspection, assisting in preparing the documents and information requested by the relevant regulator, providing relevant legal advice and etc.

Service 4 - Networking

We strive at building up a long-term business partnership with our clients. With our ever-growing client pool, we are always happy to arrange our clients and banking partners lining up with each other. We believe our clients and banking partners can explore better business opportunities by working with each other, and we can achieve a win-win solution all together.