Hong Kong Financial News

Hong Kong’s central bank has announced the launch of a new project called “Project Ensemble,” aimed at supporting the development of the tokenization market in the city-state through a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC). 

China’s exports and imports for the first two months of the year beat estimates, an indication that demand may be improving as Beijing attempts to speed up its economic recovery

The project, dubbed 'Ensemble', will initially focus on tokenised deposits issued by commercial banks and made available to the general public. It follows the completion of pilots with 16 firms last year that took a deep dive into potential use cases for an eHK in six categories, including full-fledged payments, programmable payments, offline payments, tokenised deposits, settlement of Web3 transactions and settlement of tokenised assets. At the core of Project Ensemble is a wCBDC Sandbox that the HKMA will launch this year to further research and test tokenisation use cases that include, among others, settlement of tokenised real world assets such as green bonds, carbon credits, aircraft, electric vehicle charging stations, electronic bills of lading and treasury management.

By Stella Qiu

Developing-world currencies were mixed on Tuesday as traders awaited key speeches and data that could shed light on the outlook for US interest rates while losses in Hong Kong-listed tech stocks drove emerging-market equities lower. 

stock market are increasing exposure to small- and mid-cap companies that are outperforming larger peers. The number of firms with more than 10% overseas shareholding rose to 275 on the BSE 500 Index as of December-end, versus 257 a year ago, according to a Bloomberg analysis of foreign institutional ownership data. The increase was largely fueled by minnows.

The Hong Kong government recognized Binance, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange, with the Cyber Security Professional Merit Award, highlighting its efforts to safeguard users in the dynamic Web3 landscape.

Today, Spanish data regulator Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) instructed Sam Altman’s Worldcoin to halt its operations in the country.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has eliminated about a dozen positions in its Greater China public equities team this week, representing close to 10 per cent of its Hong Kong staff, a person familiar with the matter said.

BEIJING — China's top securities regulator vowed to «strictly» crack down on market manipulators, while stating that protecting small investors was a «core task.»

Investing.com-- Shares of Apple Inc's (NASDAQ:AAPL) Asian suppliers fell on Wednesday, tracking an overnight slump in the tech giant after media reports showed Chinese sales of its flagship iPhone tumbled in the beginning of 2024.

Investing.com-- Most Asian stocks fell on Wednesday with an underwhelming economic outlook from China providing little support, while overnight losses in Wall Street spilled over as markets grew skittish before more signals on U.S. rates. 

By Ankur Banerjee

Sensex fell 195.16 points, or 0.26%, to close at 73,677.13, while the Nifty 50 settled 49.30 points, or 0.22%, lower at 22,356.30. “Investors are awaiting Fed Chair Powell’s testimony to get some input on interest rates. Overall, markets are likely to consolidate in the near term with sectorial rotation amid key events lined up.

Ram Mandir inauguration in January, hackers and cyber criminals, predominantly from China and Pakistan, were constantly targeting the websites of the Ram Temple, Prasar Bharti and other digital assets of critical infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh (UP), officials told ET. The government had blocked 1244 IP addresses, of which 999 were from China alone. «The rest of the blocked addresses were from Pakistan, Hong Kong and Cambodia,» officials said. Since the government had anticipated a rise in cyber-attacks during the inauguration, all the pre-emptive measures were put in place. The Telecom Security Operation Centre (TSOC) was monitoring around 264 websites including that of the Ram Temple, Prasar Bharti, UP Police, airport, UP tourism, and the power grid among others round the clock to prevent any cyber-attack. «It was a 7-day drill to guard the digital assets as we had anticipated a rise in cyber-attacks. Since the main event was on January 21, we had to secure the assets before and after the event also,» a person privy to the details said.

A shift away from Chinese equities by global long-term investors has taken a pause, with some funds getting less bearish, according to Morgan Stanley.

Investing.com-- Shares of Chinese electric vehicle makers fell on Tuesday, tracking an overnight slide in Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) after the world’s most valuable EV firm clocked a sharp sales decline in China. 

Shares are mostly lower in Europe and Asia following a decline on Wall Street

Investing.com-- The Chinese government will likely need to unlock more stimulus to meet its 5% GDP target for 2024, analysts at ANZ said in a note on Tuesday.

By Clare Jim and Ziyi Tang

By Scott Murdoch and Clare Jim