UP Fintech Holding Limited, the Tiger Trade online brokerage operator, has received approval from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) to upgrade its license to include dealing in virtual assets. This makes UP Fintech one of the first brokerages in Hong Kong to offer crypto trading services.
The license upgrade allows Tiger Trade to provide Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrency trading to professional investors in Hong Kong who meet certain wealth thresholds.
“Investor demand for digital assets continues to grow in Hong Kong and around the world, and we are pleased to expand our business scope to meet the growing demand of clients in this important market,” said John Fei Zeng, the CFO of UP Fintech.
UP Fintech aims to offer clients a seamless trading experience across different asset classes from a single account by integrating cryptocurrency trading into the Tiger Trade platform alongside stocks, options, futures, and funds.
Centralized Platform for Traditional and Crypto Assets
The unified Tiger Trade platform is designed to provide professional investors convenient access to both traditional securities and crypto. This enables clients to evaluate their complete portfolio risk across assets.
Over the past year, Tiger Trade has grown its user base in Hong Kong by offering zero-commission trading in Hong Kong stocks along with new products like fractional share trading. According to the latest data from Q3 2023, the total number of the company’s clients reached nearly 900,000.
“Eligible clients will benefit from our low costs and the ability to trade crypto alongside many other global products from a single unified platform without needing to open an extra account,” Zeng added.
In the future, UP Fintech plans to also open its cryptocurrency trading services to retail investors in Hong Kong after obtaining further regulatory approvals.
Tiger Fund Management and TigerGPT
The company has been actively expanding its offerings in 2023. In May, its affiliate Tiger Fund Management (TFM) received approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for its licenses to Capital Market Services and Fund Management. With over SGD 300 million ($220 million) already under management, TFM aims to provide asset and wealth management services to individual and institutional investors in Singapore under the MAS radar.
Earlier in 2023, Tiger Brokers also introduced its own alternative to the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT, called TigerGPT. The company claimed this was the first AI trading assistant released in the industry.
As Finance Magnates reported, ChatGPT has received widespread praise in recent times. AI technologies, such as machine learning, have significantly impacted trading data analysis.
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