Swiss crypto bank SEBA's Hong Kong subsidiary has been approved for a license by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), according to a Wednesday announcement.

"This license permits SEBA Hong Kong to conduct regulated activities in Hong Kong to deal in and distribute all securities, including virtual assets-related products," the Zug-based bank said.

The crypto products and services allowed under the license include over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives and structured products with underlying virtual assets, advice on virtual assets and "asset management for discretionary accounts in both traditional securities and virtual assets," according to SEBA.

The license follows approval in-principle granted in August. Hong Kong recently updated its crypto licensing frameworks to allow for retail trading, and the SFC also signaled it will allow some tokenized securities-related activities. HashKey Exchange and OSL Digital Securities won the first crypto exchange licenses under that regime.

SEBA, founded in 2018, received its first foreign license from Abu Dhabi in February, 2022.

"Institutional and professional investors, including corporate treasuries, funds, family offices and high-net-worth individuals, can begin availing of SEBA Hong Kong’s licensed services from today," SEBA said.

Regulations Hong Kong SFC SEBA Switzerland

Sandali Handagama

Sandali Handagama is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor for policy and regulations, EMEA. She is an alumna of Columbia University's graduate school of journalism and has contributed to a variety of publications including The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Nation and Popular Science. Sandali doesn't own any crypto and she tweets as @iamsandali