AMINA’s Hong Kong subsidiary has expanded its regulatory permissions to provide crypto spot trading and safeguarding services to investors in the territory. The approval, granted through an enhancement of its Securities and Futures Commission Type 1 licence, makes the banking group the first overseas institution of its kind to offer a combined trading-and-custody model within Hong Kong’s digital asset ruleset.
Institutional demand and regulatory context
Digital asset oversight has been in place in Hong Kong for several years, yet professional investors have continued to face limited access to international-grade crypto services through locally regulated channels. Institutions and family offices have sought providers capable of pairing global operational standards with domestic onboarding requirements.
AMINA’s updated licence is intended to respond to this gap by integrating crypto trading, custody access, and related operational support under a structure supervised by Hong Kong authorities.
Representatives from AMINA stated that the city has become one of the region’s more advanced centres for regulated institutional participation in digital assets, noting that the updated permissions allow the group to address rising demand for crypto access that is in line with the governance standards applied to conventional financial instruments. They also indicated that the approval allows the firm to expand its product range over time, including areas such as fund strategies, structured instruments, derivatives and tokenised assets.
In essence, AMINA Hong Kong can provide round-the-clock spot trading, asset safeguarding, and the ability for clients to move digital assets to and from verified external wallets. These functions operate within SFC requirements and are structured to maintain controls associated with institutional-level infrastructure.
The service launch includes access to 13 screened cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, several stablecoins and selected decentralised finance tokens, supported by execution routed through licenced liquidity channels.
