SFC Approves 24/7 Trading of Tokenised Money Funds

Two tokenised money market funds can now be bought and sold around the clock in Hong Kong. The Securities and Futures Commission said on Monday 26 October that it had approved secondary trading of the two funds on a licensed crypto trading platform, and that trading began the same day.

The SFC called it “the world’s first secondary trading of tokenised public funds” on an SFC-licensed virtual asset trading platform, in its announcement. The funds are the ChinaAMC HKD Digital Money Market Fund and the ChinaAMC USD Digital Money Market Fund, both already authorised by the regulator for sale to the public. The SFC did not name the trading platform.

In brief

Two ChinaAMC tokenised money market funds, in Hong Kong dollars and US dollars, began trading 24/7 on an SFC-licensed crypto platform on 26 October.
The rules come from an April 2026 SFC framework that requires price alerts, trading bands and at least one market maker where possible.
The SFC calls it a world first. It did not name the platform or give fund sizes, fees or volumes.

From buying at NAV to trading on a screen

Until now, investors in a tokenised fund like these dealt with the fund itself. They subscribed or redeemed at net asset value, the fund’s per-unit worth, during set dealing windows. Secondary trading adds a market: investors trade fund tokens with each other, or with a market maker, at whatever price clears on the platform, at any hour.

The SFC set the rules for that in circular 26EC23, issued on 20 April 2026, which it said covers “the operation of the trading channel, fair pricing, liquidity provision and disclosure”. Under it, retail investors trade through on-screen automatic matching on licensed platforms, under the platforms’ existing trading rules and risk controls. The fund manager is expected to use its “best endeavours” to arrange at least one market maker, and that market maker must give at least three months’ notice before stopping. Tokens bought on the platform must be redeemable with the fund, and tokens created by the fund must be tradable on the platform.

The SFC tied the launch to Project Ensemble, its work with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority on tokenised deposits. Through it, the regulator said, investors “could sell their tokenised assets on VATPs on an around-the-clock basis, and transfer their trading proceeds instantly”.

“Secondary trading of tokenised money market funds marks an important milestone in the SFC’s ongoing effort in advancing Hong Kong’s digital asset development,” said Elisa Ng, the SFC’s executive director of investment products. “It puts the SFC’s regulatory framework through its paces and adds an important building block – 24/7 trading capability – to Hong Kong’s evolving tokenisation ecosystem.” The SFC said it would watch trading and “consider broadening the product scope over time”.

A fund token that trades can drift from its value

The new risk is a gap between price and value. A money market fund is meant to be dull: its NAV barely moves. A token of it trading at 3 a.m. on a Sunday can still change hands above or below that NAV if buyers or sellers are thin. The circular addresses this directly. Platforms must show a Price Deviation Alert when a trade would execute well away from an indicative NAV, typically refreshed at least every 15 seconds, and must tell investors they can deal with the fund at NAV instead. That fallback, the circular notes, runs on normal dealing windows such as Monday to Friday, which is exactly when a weekend seller would not have it.

The market maker is the weak point

Liquidity rests on the market maker, and the rules only ask managers to try to have one. The circular lists “market maker reliance risks” and weekend liquidity among the risks investors must be warned about. Three months’ notice before a market maker walks away is a cushion, not a guarantee.

That is why the missing details matter. Elsewhere, tokenised money funds are spreading across chains, such as J.P. Morgan’s two funds now on Solana, and onto new venues, as in DigiFT’s Fidelity Treasury listing. Hong Kong, where HSBC has just launched its first stablecoin on PayMe, is testing whether a public fund can live on an exchange screen. Tokenised funds’ move toward 24/7 cash has so far been about settlement, not trading.

The number to watch is the spread. If the two ChinaAMC tokens trade within a whisker of NAV through the first weekend, the SFC’s framework has passed its first real test.