CFTC Grants Certification to 23 HKFE Index Futures Contracts

Source: Regulation Asia Editors, Regulation Asia 2020-07-21

The 23 contracts can be offered and sold to US persons, and are among the new products being introduced by the HKFE as part of a ten-year licensing agreement with MSCI.

The HKFE (Hong Kong Futures Exchange) said in a circular it has obtained CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) certification for 23 of its broad-based equity index contracts to be offered and sold to US persons.

The 23 contracts are among the 37 new futures and options contracts the HKFE is introducing as part of a ten-year licensing agreement with MSCI announced in May. The first tranche of contracts was introduced on 6 July, and the second tranche on 20 July. The next two tranches will be on 3 August and 17 August, respectively.

The details of the new MSCI products and their respective launch dates are available here.

The new MSCI contracts that did not receive CFTC certification are those tracking New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, as well as all non-USD contracts, and one of the two Singapore contracts denominated in USD.

The two Indonesia contracts under the MSCI licensing agreement also did not receive certification as they are classified by the CFTC as ‘narrow-based’ security indices. As such, only certain eligible market participants in the US are allowed to trade these contracts, but there must be no “directed selling efforts” into the US.

A full list of existing contracts of HKFE which the CFTC has granted no-action relief or certified is available here.

HKFE

MSCI futures and options contracts

CFTC Grants Certification to 23 HKFE Index Futures Contracts

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