Regulated Licensing in Hong Kong | Native Group Limited

Licensing is not paperwork. It is a test of whether the business can operate lawfully.

Most applications that fail do not fail on the forms. They fail because the people named are not demonstrably fit and proper, because the internal systems exist on paper but not in practice, or because the answers given to the regulator’s follow-up questions contradict the file that was submitted three months earlier.

We work on regulated licensing from the inside of the same system. Native Group holds a Trust or Company Service Provider licence and is supervised by the Companies Registry, which means we build compliance files for our own business to the same standard we build them for yours — and we are inspected on them.

Licences coveredSFC · MSO · DPMS · TCSP

Our own licenceTCSP No. TC010379

Working languagesEnglish · Russian · Chinese

EngagementEligibility review first, then a scoped project

What we handle

Four licences, four regulators.

Each has its own authority, its own threshold and its own inspection culture. What they share is that the decision rests on people, systems and evidence — in that order.

Securities and futures

SFC licence

Regulated activities under the Securities and Futures Ordinance — dealing in securities, advising on securities, asset management and the related types. The application turns on the competence of the responsible officers, the internal control systems and the financial resources behind them.

Type 1 — dealing in securities
Type 4 — advising on securities
Type 9 — asset management
Responsible officer applications and substitutions

RegulatorSecurities and Futures Commission

Money services

Money Service Operator (MSO)

Required to operate a money changing or remittance business in Hong Kong. The licence is granted to a fit-and-proper operator with a working anti-money-laundering system — not to a business plan. Premises, systems and the people behind them are all examined.

Money changing and remittance operations
AML and counter-terrorist financing systems
Fit-and-proper assessment of the operators
Renewal and variation of an existing licence

RegulatorCustoms and Excise Department

Precious metals and stones

Precious metals and stones (DPMS)

Dealers in precious metals and stones must register under Category A or B depending on the size of the cash transactions they handle. Category B carries full customer due diligence and record-keeping obligations, and is inspected on that basis.

Category A and Category B registration
Customer due diligence procedures
Transaction record-keeping systems
Preparing for a Customs inspection

RegulatorCustoms and Excise Department

Corporate services

Trust or Company Service Provider (TCSP)

The licence we hold ourselves. It is required to provide company formation, company secretary or registered office services in Hong Kong, and since the Registry tightened its guideline in March 2025 the standard of the AML systems behind it has risen sharply.

New TCSP licence applications
Fit-and-proper documentation for controllers
AML and due-diligence systems
Licence renewal and inspection readiness

RegulatorCompanies Registry

How an application runs

Six stages, and the first one can end it.

Timelines vary by licence and by how complete the applicant’s starting position is. What does not vary is the order: eligibility, then people, then systems, then the file.

Eligibility reviewBefore anything is drafted we establish whether the applicant can meet the capital, personnel and premises requirements. This is delivered as a written assessment, and it is where an application that cannot succeed should stop.
Structure and peopleThe corporate structure, the responsible officers or licensed representatives, and the ownership chain behind them — documented to the standard the regulator will test.
Systems and manualsInternal controls, compliance manual, AML and due-diligence procedures, record-keeping. A regulator reads these to decide whether the business can operate lawfully on the day the licence is granted.
The application fileForms, supporting evidence, business plan, financial projections and the personal documentation for every individual named. Assembled as one consistent file rather than a stack of separate documents.
Regulator correspondenceApplications are rarely granted on the first submission. Questions come back, often more than once, and the answers are what decide the outcome. We handle that correspondence and keep the file current.
After the licenceThe obligations begin, rather than end, on the grant. Annual returns, notifications of change, continuing professional training, ongoing monitoring and inspection readiness — handled on a retained basis.

Stated plainly

What we will and will not tell you.

A licence is granted by a regulator, not by an adviser. Anyone who guarantees the outcome of a licence application is telling you something they cannot know. What can be promised is the quality of the file and the honesty of the assessment that precedes it.

We will tell you if the application cannot succeed. The eligibility review exists precisely so that a client does not spend a year and a substantial fee discovering it.
We do not promise a grant, a timeline or a regulator’s view. We can describe what the regulator has asked of comparable applicants, and prepare for it.
We will not name a responsible officer who cannot stand behind the role. The individuals named on a licence carry personal obligations, and a regulator checks them.
We do not disappear after the grant. The conditions attached to a licence run for as long as it does, and most of the trouble we are called in to fix arrives in year two.

Licensing for regulated activities in Hong Kong.