86 Financial and Monetary Affairs
and issuers; supervision of markets including the exchanges and clearing houses; enforcement of securities laws and rules; and investor education.
As at year-end, there were 22 373 licensed persons, including securities. brokerage firms, futures dealers, and securities margin financiers, as well as their representatives, and 97 registered institutions, such as banks, engaging in regulated activities like dealing and advising on securities and futures.
The SFC considers investor education the first important step to investor protection. In 2004, the SFC produced a documentary-drama series, Foundations in Wealth Management, on investment advisory services and niche products, and jointly produced a television drama series called All About Stock Investing on wide-ranging topics of stock investment with Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK). It also joined hands with RTHK and the Salvation Army to make an investor education radio programme, Invest Wisely for Seniors.
The SFC introduced the Smart Investor Awards in 2004 to encourage the public to report financial scams to regulators. It also continued to publish the monthly Dr Wise's column to discuss with investors key issues of investing and regulatory thoughts. During 2004, the column covered topics such as IPO investing, concept stocks, warrants, Real Estate Investment Trusts, and fees and charges for holding and trading Hong Kong stocks.
The SFC also maintains an Alert List to warn investors about suspected 'boiler room' operators, scam websites (e.g. copycat websites) and phishing scams. In November, the SFC introduced the new SFC corporate website (www.sfc.hk) and revamped Electronic Investor Resources Centre (www.eirc.hk) to provide the market and investors with more regulatory and educational information.
As in previous years, the SFC also organised a series of investor education. workshops for secondary school teachers of Economics, Commerce and related subjects to facilitate their teaching work. Moreover, it has for the first time partnered with Lingnan University to launch a credit-based investor education course for undergraduates.
In the meantime, the SFC remained active in external relations and international activities. During the year, the SFC signed a Letter of Intent each with Indonesia's Ministry of Finance Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam) and Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission on the establishment of regulatory cooperation on cross-border trading and the supervision of regulated funds. The SFC also signed a Memorandum Of Understanding with the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission to establish a framework for mutual assistance and facilitate the exchange of information to enable better market regulation.
The SFC continued to participate in the work of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), and has chaired the IOSCO Technical Committee since October 2003. Given the importance of effective client identification processes, and to complement the work of the Financial Action Task Force regarding its newly revised Forty Recommendations to combat money
combat money laundering, the Technical