ENG-2019 — Page 113

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Financial and Monetary Affairs

Recent Developments

From April, scheme members were allowed to start making additional, tax-deductible voluntary contributions to help themselves save up more for retirement. By December, almost 24,000 such accounts had been set up and the contributions totalled $761 million.

An MPF Fund Platform was launched on the MPFA website in April, followed by a mobile application version in July, to provide information on the management fees and investment performance of MPF funds. The MPFA is working on producing a user-centric eMPF platform by 2022 to standardise, streamline and automate MPF scheme administration processes so as to create room for fee reduction and offer a predominantly paperless MPF experience.

Anti-money Laundering and Counter-terrorist Financing

Money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) is a global problem that can undermine the integrity and stability of international financial markets. Hong Kong's position as an international financial centre and an externally oriented economy potentially exposes it to such threats from within the city and more so from other places. As a member of the Financial Action Task Force, Hong Kong has a robust, mature and effective regulatory regime to combat ML/TF, effectively safeguarding the integrity of its business environment and reputation as an international financial centre.

The task force completed its fourth round of mutual evaluation on Hong Kong, which assessed the technical compliance and effectiveness of Hong Kong's system in combating ML/TF, and published its mutual evaluation report in September. It commended Hong Kong for having a strong legal foundation and effective system that was particularly effective in risk identification, law enforcement, asset recovery, counter-terrorist financing and international cooperation. Hong Kong's regime was assessed to be compliant and effective overall, making the city the first jurisdiction in the Asia-Pacific region to achieve an overall compliant result in the said round of evaluation.

Hong Kong as China's Global Financial Centre

With the continued internationalisation of the RMB and the opening up of Mainland financial markets, the currency is increasingly used in global transactions, ranging from cross-boundary trade and direct investment transactions to financial investment and asset management activities.

Thanks to its deep pool of liquidity, efficient financial infrastructure and multitude of cross- boundary portfolio flow channels, Hong Kong is the largest and most important global offshore RMB business hub, offering a wide range of RMB-denominated investment products, including listed and unlisted investment funds, insurance products, currency futures, real estate investment trusts, shares, derivatives products and bonds.

Hong Kong is the global leader in RMB financial intermediation activities, handling more than 70 per cent of global offshore RMB payments in recent years13. In 2019, Hong Kong maintained

13

Figures are quoted from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.

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