In accordance with the law regulating the money market, any person or legal entity operating money services is obliged to become approved by the HK Custοms and Εxcise Department. Such regulation is backed by the AML/CTF Ordinance. According to this law, mοney service also encompasses exchanging and remitting services. Running business operations without having an approval is treated as an offense. Accordingly, MSO shall only carry out operations once the HK Customs and Εxcise office has issued a money service operators license in Hong Kong. Generally, this authorization is valid for two years; further, it is subject to renewal if the owner considers continuing its operation.
What is meant by mοney service?
MSO in Hong Kong refers to actions for exchanging currency units that are run as a firm, however, do not encompass those services that is incidental to the core operation.
In this relation, remitting funds means the delivery of one or more of the below-mentioned services that is run in HK jurisdiction as a business:
- sending funds or executing orders to a place outside HK;
- receiving funds or executing orders from a place outside HK;
- executing orders in a place outside HK.
Getting a financial license in HK: documents
To acquire a permission to operate, an applicant is obliged to meet the following obligations:
- Submit papers of the applicant’s particulars (Articles of organization);
- Submit supporting papers of particulars of office;
- Submit supporting papers of particulars of agents, senior management, or owners of the company;
- Submit a letter of authorization with the signatures of all partnering sides or executive management evidencing the request.
Alongside this main documentation, the applicant may be obliged to send other papers to regulators to clarify certain aspects of the firm, for instance, an overview of intended actions or profit projections.
After the procession is over and clarifications from the applicant are in place, the regulator will arrange a meeting to verify the provided data and payment records. At this stage of receiving approval, the business owner will be asked to sign the official request for the issuance of a license.
The issued authorization will contain such peculiarities of the business as:
- the address,
- the terms imposed or amended in line with AML laws, and
- the term of validity.
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