Global Investment Markets at Fingertips

With a solid presence in Hong Kong, Saxo Markets grows its local team to support more strategic initiatives targeting the GBA and Mainland market.

The advent of technologies has made investments easier than ever, even more so with the right tools and platforms. A licensed subsidiary of Copenhagen-based Saxo Bank, Saxo Markets is an international online brokerage firm that offers award-winning trading and investment platforms with access to over 40,000 tradeable instruments across global markets, allowing clients to trade, hedge and invest in all markets from one single account. 

Well-established banking and financial ecosystem 

Saxo Markets opened its Hong Kong office in 2011 and has been licensed by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) since 2012. Through the past decade, its rapid development has been a testimony of the city’s status as a leading financial center in Asia. “Hong Kong has a robust trading and investing culture, as well as investors that are generally savvy and digitally focused,” said Richard Douglas, Chief Information Officer and Chief Operations Officer of Greater China, Saxo Markets. “As a sophisticated destination for companies in the banking and financial services sector, Hong Kong also enjoys the benefits of unrivalled access to Mainland China, including free movement of capital, talent, goods and information.” 

“Hong Kong is therefore an ideal gateway for Saxo, as we are also expanding our business in Mainland China. Being in Hong Kong lets us harvest synergies across Hong Kong and Mainland China that can allow us to reach more people with our multi-asset platforms, helping them to reach their financial goals,” he added.  

Tapping into the GBA and Mainland Market  

Seeing growing demand from investors, Saxo launched eIPO subscription services in October 2020, riding on the advantages of Hong Kong as a popular IPO market. “The city has a highly competitive business environment and a mature and well-regulated marketplace. It has the largest offshore liquidity pool for RMB in the world and with exciting developments and initiatives across the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), such as the Wealth Management Connect,” said Douglas, “we are well-positioned to expand and offer an unparalleled platform and service to our clients.” 

In terms of its efforts in Mainland China, Saxo Markets launched a joint venture Saxo FinTech with its major shareholder Geely Group in 2020. This Chongqing-based FinTech utilises the latest technology such as cloud-based services, big data and artificial intelligence to provide Chinese institutions with full-suite financial and regulatory solutions.  

Douglas is enthusiastic about the GBA initiatives: “We will be participating in growing the importance of the area through Saxo’s presence. We have helped international clients trading Mainland securities through the Stock Connect in 2018, and Bond Connect since 2019. We believe that the seamless connectivity within the GBA can further benefit the long-term economic and financial development of the region.”  

He remarked that Saxo Markets would continue to leverage InvestHK’s strong connections to a wide range of companies in Hong Kong.  “InvestHK‘s strong connections with family offices in Hong Kong is something we are keen to help further strengthen and to tap into, as professional family office services in Hong Kong can become future-ready through our OpenAPI technology and other offerings,” Douglas concluded.