Tiger Brokers Parent Swings to Loss as China Penalty Wipes Out Its Profit

UP Fintech Holding, the Nasdaq-listed parent company of Tiger Brokers, reported a net loss of $26.9 million for the first quarter, reversing a $30.4 million profit from a year earlier. This swing into the red follows penalties of approximately $59.7 million imposed by Chinese securities regulators. Despite the loss, the company's revenue rose 26.3% year-over-year to $154.9 million.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission's Beijing bureau ordered the confiscation of illegal income and levied administrative fines totaling about 411 million yuan ($59.7 million) on May 22. Regulators stated that certain Tiger Brokers subsidiaries operated an unlicensed cross-border securities business and conducted illegal fund and futures activities in mainland China.

This enforcement action follows a larger proposed fine of about $271 million against rival Futu Holdings in mid-May over similar allegations. Authorities have also flagged actions against a Tiger Brokers unit in New Zealand and a Hong Kong arm of LongBridge Securities, signaling a broader crackdown on platforms routing mainland clients to overseas markets.

Excluding the penalty, the broker's underlying business remained profitable. The fine was recorded as a $64.1 million expense, dragging pre-tax results to a $16.5 million loss. Commission revenue rose 15.3% to $67.2 million, interest income climbed 19.8% to $64.5 million, and other revenue tied to wealth management surged to $20.7 million.

The company added 28,900 funded accounts in the quarter, primarily from Singapore and Hong Kong, bringing the total to 1.28 million. Net asset inflows hit a record $2.9 billion. However, total client assets fell 3.2% sequentially to $58.9 billion due to market declines, though they were still up 28.4% year-over-year.

On the product front, Tiger Brokers enhanced its Tiger AI assistant into a "Multi-Agent" system and integrated Anthropic's Claude model. The corporate desk underwrote 10 Hong Kong IPOs, including AI firms MiniMax and Zhipu AI. Alongside its results, the board approved a share buyback of up to $50 million over the next 12 months.