HONG KONG — The Securities and Futures Commission keeps a public register of licensed virtual-asset trading platforms, and this year it reached thirteen entries. The thirteenth, an exchange run by NewBX Limited, was licensed on 18 May 2026. Behind the register stand two licensed stablecoin issuers, HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial, cleared by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority on 10 April 2026 from a field of 36 applicants. Every entry on that list carries an operating obligation, and every obligation lands on a desk with a name attached to it.
The Register Grew Faster Than the Bench
Between 2025 and the first half of 2026, digital bonds issued in Hong Kong captured nearly half of the global market, according to the Policy Address delivered on 16 September. The same document recorded that IPO fundraising had passed HK$340 billion by the end of August, more than the whole of last year. Digital finance has become the city’s growth story, and it is being staffed in real time.
The problem is arithmetic. Thirteen platforms, two issuers, a custody market opening next, and a workforce that was never trained for any of it. The Hong Kong Computer Society’s 2026 industry survey, released on 14 June, ranked talent shortages as the single largest obstacle to digital transformation, ahead of unclear returns and tight budgets, even though more than half of the organisations surveyed planned to raise technology spending this year. SunTzu Recruit’s financial-services desk in Hong Kong hears the same story from the other side of the table: mandates like these are quick to write and slow to close.
What the Policy Address Actually Ordered
Paragraph 49 asks the SFC to sharpen the virtual-asset licensing regimes, publish guidelines that map a clear compliance pathway for service providers, and improve the framework for tokenised investment products so that gold and other real-world assets can be issued and traded on licensed venues. It also asks the regulator to promote trading of regulated stablecoins on licensed platforms and their use in settling tokenised money-market funds. Paragraph 50 gives the HKMA a deadline: central bank digital currency settlement and 24/7 operations under EnsembleTX by around the end of this year, plus more use cases for tokenised deposits. Paragraph 35 commits to regularising digital bond issuance and testing tokenisation of Exchange Fund Bills by December, with more than $1.3 trillion of those bills outstanding. CMU OmniClear, the bond settlement arm, is due to stand up a digital asset platform this year for issuing and settling those instruments. Paragraph 33 pushes the surrounding plumbing further still, widening an offshore renminbi business facility to RMB 500 billion with loan tenors of up to three years, which is the kind of expansion that shows up later as cross-border settlement volume.
Read as a hiring document, those paragraphs describe a night shift. A market that settles around the clock needs operations teams who do not go home at 18:00, treasury staff who can manage tokenised reserves when the banks are dark, and at least two responsible officers for each regulated activity who will personally answer to the regulator. Hong Kong has plenty of bankers. It has very few bankers who have worked that shift.
The Licence File Is the Hard Part
Robert Walters, in its Global Salary Survey 2026, found 69 percent of Hong Kong employers naming the lack of candidates with the right skills as their top hiring challenge, alongside a pricing gap: 81 percent of professionals said they would need a double-digit rise to move, most of them 16 to 20 percent, while 83 percent of employers planned offers under six percent. Compliance skills carry their own premium of 15 to 20 percent on a move, according to Morgan Philips’ Hong Kong hiring outlook published in May.
For digital-asset seats the interview is not the hard part, the licence file is. That is how a recruitment specialist at SunTzu Recruit, who runs financial-services mandates from Hong Kong, describes the queue. A bank can hire a blockchain architect in a month; finding a responsible officer already approved for virtual-asset activity, and willing to move, is a six- to nine-month problem instead.
None of this looks like a technology problem on the ground. It looks like a supply chain problem: platforms, custodians, issuers and banks each need separately approved people before a single tokenised trade can settle, and no amount of engineering headcount shortens the approval queue.
Mainland Desks Are Recruiting for the Same Chair
The queue is not only local. Mainland institutions spent two years converting Hong Kong subsidiaries into digital-asset venues. Guotai Junan International became the first Chinese brokerage with a full virtual-asset licence in June 2025, CMB International followed as the first bank-backed mainland broker, and the SFC’s Type 1 upgrade route turned brokerage compliance departments into recruitment markets. Each new licence pulls a compliance head, a technology risk officer and a product lead out of the same small pool, and usually asks for someone who can work in Mandarin with a mainland parent and in English with an SFC supervisor.
SunTzu Recruit’s senior consultant who covers the Greater Bay Area described the pattern from the employer’s side: mandates now treat dual-regime fluency as a hard filter, which removes roughly two thirds of any longlist. Cross-border searches conducted by SunTzu Recruitment for tokenisation and digital-asset operations roles have started in Shanghai and Shenzhen, where the technical talent sits, and finished in Hong Kong, where the licence sits. The reverse movement is smaller but growing: licensed Hong Kong staff are being courted by mainland parents to run their overseas booking centres.
That Said, the Arithmetic Deserves a Second Look
That said, the shortage story is easy to oversell. Hong Kong’s regulators have been deliberately stingy: 36 applications produced two stablecoin licences in April, and the HKMA has said the total will stay very limited. Thirteen platforms is not a labour market, it is a club. On that reading the constraint is a few dozen people spread across a handful of institutions, a problem that relocation and pay can settle faster than any training programme.
There is a second wrinkle. The roles that are hardest to fill today may not be the ones that matter in two years. The Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau and the SFC published consultation conclusions in December 2025 on separate regimes for virtual-asset dealing and custody, with a bill targeted at the Legislative Council this year. If custody becomes a standalone licence, demand shifts from trading-desk compliance towards custody operations, audit and insurance — a different shortlist, drawn from banks rather than from crypto firms.
What to Watch Into 2027
Watch three things. Whether the stablecoin register grows beyond two names, which tells employers whether to build teams or borrow them. Whether the dealing and custody bill clears LegCo with transition periods long enough for institutions to train in-house instead of poaching. And whether anyone breaks the salary ceiling: with 83 percent of employers holding offers under six percent, the first institution to cross that line takes the scarce people, and everyone else spends another quarter searching.
SunTzu Recruitment’s industry advisor put the choice plainly. The licence takes months, the building takes weeks, and the person who signs the file takes years. Cities that build these markets on schedule tend to learn that arithmetic late; the ones that plan for it hire before the register grows.
FAQ
Q: What roles does a licensed virtual-asset market actually need?
A: The seats cluster around control functions rather than engineering. A market that settles around the clock needs operations teams that do not stop at 18:00, treasury staff who can manage tokenised reserves when banks are closed, and at least two responsible officers for each regulated activity who answer personally to the regulator. Platforms, custodians, issuers and banks each need separately approved people before a single tokenised trade can settle.
Q: Why is a licence file harder to fill than a technology role?
A: Because approval, not ability, sets the pace. A bank can hire a blockchain architect in about a month, while finding a responsible officer already approved for virtual-asset activity and willing to move is a six- to nine-month problem. Dual-regime fluency is now treated as a hard filter, removing roughly two-thirds of any longlist: the role usually requires Mandarin with a mainland parent and English with the regulator.
Q: What are candidates expecting on pay right now?
A: A visible gap between expectation and offer. Industry salary surveys put 81 percent of professionals saying they would need a double-digit rise to move, most of them 16 to 20 percent, while 83 percent of employers planned offers under six percent. Regulatory-compliance skills carry their own premium of 15 to 20 percent on a move, which is why control functions are the hardest seats to fill and the most expensive to keep.
Q: Could the hard-to-fill roles change within two years?
A: Yes, and regulation will decide it. The Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau and the Securities and Futures Commission published consultation conclusions in December 2025 on separate regimes for virtual-asset dealing and custody, with a bill targeted at the legislature this year. If custody becomes a standalone licence, demand shifts from trading-desk compliance toward custody operations, audit and insurance, drawing a different shortlist from banks rather than from digital-asset firms.
Sources: Hong Kong SAR Government 2026 Policy Address (policyaddress.gov.hk, delivered 16 September 2026) on digital bond market share, HK1.3trillionofExchangeFundBills,HK340 billion of IPO fundraising, tokenised gold and real-world assets, regulated stablecoin trading, tokenised money-market fund settlement, EnsembleTX 24/7 CBDC settlement, and the SFC’s virtual-asset licensing guidelines; SFC List of Licensed Virtual Asset Trading Platforms (sfc.hk, register updated 2026) on the 13 licensed platform operators, including the thirteenth licensed 18 May 2026; HKMA Register of Licensed Stablecoin Issuers and Fintech News Hong Kong (10 April 2026) on the first two stablecoin issuer licences, HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial, granted from 36 applications; Hong Kong Computer Society 2026 I&T Industry Trend Survey (14 June 2026) on talent shortages ranking first among transformation obstacles and more than half of organisations raising IT spending; Robert Walters Global Salary Survey 2026 (Hong Kong) on 69 percent of employers citing candidate quality, 81 percent of professionals expecting double-digit rises, 16-20 percent expectations and 83 percent of employers offering under six percent; Morgan Philips Hong Kong Hiring Market Outlook 2026 (7 May 2026) on 15-20 percent pay premiums for regulatory-compliance skills; China Daily Asia (25 June 2025) on Guotai Junan International’s Type 1 virtual-asset upgrade; SCMP on CMB International Securities receiving a virtual-asset licence; FSTB and SFC consultation conclusions of 24 December 2025 and the HKMA’s statement that stablecoin licence numbers would remain very limited.
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