Hong Kong Opens 24/7 Trading in ChinaAMC Tokenised Funds as Gold ETF Pilot Comes Into View

Two funds bring public fund trading into evenings and weekends

Hong Kong has approved continuous secondary trading in two ChinaAMC money market funds, giving retail investors a way to buy and sell tokenised fund units on a licensed virtual asset platform outside normal business hours. The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) announced the approval on October 26, 2026, describing it as the world's first regulatory approval for secondary trading of tokenised public funds on such a platform.

The products are the ChinaAMC HKD Digital Money Market Fund and ChinaAMC USD Digital Money Market Fund. ChinaAMC Hong Kong and PantherTrade, a Hong Kong platform under Futu, announced a service allowing eligible retail investors to trade their tokenised units 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, under the platform's rules.

The SFC and the launch announcement put the start of continuous trading on October 26; PantherTrade trading information cited an earlier opening of October 15, 2026, at 17:00 Hong Kong time. The platform identifies the US dollar product as CUMFU-USD and the Hong Kong dollar product as CAMFF-HKD.

For investors, the immediate change is the trading window. Instead of waiting for a fund's normal subscription or redemption process, a holder can offer existing units for sale to another investor during an evening or weekend. The price available will depend on the orders and liquidity on the platform.

The experiment is already pointing toward a wider market. In a November 3 speech at Hong Kong FinTech Week, Elisa Ng, the SFC's executive director of investment products, identified a tokenised gold exchange traded fund as a possible next pilot. She also said Hong Kong had 17 authorised tokenised retail products with total assets under management of US$1.3 billion.

What investors are buying and selling

A tokenised fund unit is a digital representation of an interest in an investment fund. In this case, the investment remains a unit in a ChinaAMC money market fund denominated in Hong Kong dollars or US dollars. Money market funds generally invest in short term debt and cash instruments, seeking income while managing liquidity.

Primary dealing means subscribing for new units from a fund or redeeming units back to it. Those transactions normally follow the fund's dealing timetable and use its calculated net asset value, or NAV. NAV is the value of the fund's assets after liabilities, divided by the number of units.

Secondary trading means buying an existing unit from another holder. A buyer and seller can complete that exchange without requiring the fund to create or cancel a unit for every transaction. The platform brings their orders together, much as a securities exchange matches orders for listed shares.

PantherTrade's arrangements also define how investors can hold these products. Ownership is officially recorded outside the blockchain, and the platform does not allow deposits or withdrawals of the tokens. Investors therefore access the service through the platform's trading and custody arrangements, rather than transferring the units freely between external wallets.

How the pilot reached the market

The SFC built the pilot on its existing rules for authorised investment products, exchange traded funds and licensed virtual asset trading platforms. Its earlier tokenisation framework, introduced in November 2023, covered primary dealing. The April 2026 changes opened a route for secondary trading.

The main steps were:

• November 2023: The SFC established its framework for tokenised authorised investment products, initially covering primary subscriptions and redemptions.
• April 20, 2026: The regulator issued its secondary trading circular and updated the 2023 tokenisation circular.
• October 26, 2026: The SFC announced approval for secondary trading of the two ChinaAMC funds.
• November 3, 2026: Ng outlined a proposed Innovation Pathway and identified a tokenised gold ETF as a possible next pilot.

SFC chief executive Julia Leung explained the intended change in an April 20 statement:

This initiative allows a traditional securities product, once tokenised, to be traded in the evening and on weekends

Simmons & Simmons, in its April 22 framework analysis, sets out the responsibilities assigned to fund providers and trading platforms. New products, the addition of tokenisation features to existing funds, and material changes to approved trading arrangements require prior consultation with the SFC.

Who keeps buyers and sellers connected?

Market makers are central to the pilot. These firms place buying and selling quotations so investors have someone to trade with even when another ordinary investor has not placed a matching order. Their quotations help determine both the price and the amount that can be traded.

The SFC framework requires product providers to use their best efforts to ensure each product has at least one market maker. At least one market maker must give no less than three months' notice before ending its arrangement. Providers must monitor trading and liquidity, stay in contact with market makers and prepare contingency plans.

Platforms have their own duties. They must check market makers before appointment and monitor their performance afterward, including the gap between buying and selling prices, quotation sizes, minimum order durations and participation rates. They must also specify what happens if a market maker becomes unavailable.

For an investor selling units on a Sunday, those details affect the transaction directly. A small gap between buying and selling prices reduces the cost of entering and leaving a position. Larger quoted amounts make it easier to trade without moving the market price sharply. Backup arrangements provide a response when the usual source of quotations stops operating.

Prices need a reference point around the clock

Fund units traded between investors can change hands above or below NAV. A price above the value of the underlying unit is called a premium; a price below it is a discount. Demand, the supply of units and the availability of market makers can all affect that gap.

The framework requires platforms to display the last NAV and a current indicative NAV, with the data source and update frequency. The indicative figure is an estimate of unit value during trading and should typically be updated at least every 15 seconds. Investors must receive an alert when a proposed execution price differs substantially from that reference.

The 15 second requirement concerns the reference value, while price alerts respond to significant deviations. Platforms must also tell investors about the option of subscribing or redeeming through the primary market at NAV and explain how that route works.

Trading must use automatic order matching on the licensed platform. Customers need enough money or fund units to cover their trades. Automated checks before trades, monitoring after trades and trading bands are among the controls intended to contain excessive price movements and market manipulation.

Investor protection extends beyond the price screen

Fund providers must explain the trading arrangements in offering documents, including the product key facts statement. Required information covers settlement, indicative fees, market makers, incentives and the circumstances in which secondary trading may be suspended.

Disclosures must also describe liquidity risk, reliance on market makers, potential differences between market prices and NAV, and the possibility of different prices across trading channels. Where an affiliated company acts as a market maker, potential conflicts of interest must be disclosed.

Platforms must obtain confirmation that customers understand the risks before giving them access to secondary trading. Providers must give the SFC early warning of operational or liquidity problems. If trading or market making stops or is suspended, the regulator and investors must be notified immediately, together with an assessment of the impact and the response.

Continuous opening hours create a continuous operational responsibility. Price information, surveillance, customer protection and incident management must work during weekends as well as weekdays. Fund providers must also prepare for situations such as a suspension of primary dealing, when the normal route for creating or redeeming units is interrupted.

Fund size and investor interest give context

Published fund valuations cited for the two products were US$564.33 million for the US dollar fund and HK$98.40 million for the Hong Kong dollar fund. Those are values for the entire funds. The tokenised share classes and the units offered for trading on PantherTrade sit within that wider fund structure.

Investor interest offers another measure of the opportunity. An October 2025 BCG and Aptos survey found that 61% of respondents planned to increase their fund allocations because of tokenisation. That finding describes investment intentions among the people surveyed, while actual trading activity depends on investors placing orders.

Several practical details remain unpublished or undecided: verified trading volumes and order book depth for the two products, a firm timetable for a gold ETF pilot, and a launch date for the proposed instant reuse of sale proceeds. The SFC says it will monitor trading and consider expanding the eligible product range as experience accumulates.

The most useful measures of the pilot's performance will be concrete: the gap between buying and selling prices, the amount available at quoted prices, deviations from NAV, trading volumes and the operation of subscriptions and redemptions. Together, they show how readily an investor can turn a holding into usable money.

Project Ensemble targets the cash side of trading

The SFC sees a further step in connecting tokenised funds with tokenised money. Through Project Ensemble, it has been working with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority on asset management tokenisation initiatives and the use of tokenised deposits.

A tokenised deposit is a digital representation of a deposit held with a bank. Pairing that form of money with a tokenised fund could allow both parts of a transaction, the investment and the payment, to move through connected digital systems. Settlement is the process that completes the exchange by delivering the asset and the money.

The regulator's proposed outcome is practical: an investor could sell a tokenised holding on a virtual asset platform and immediately direct the proceeds toward another investment or use. That would address the movement of money after a sale, as well as the ability to place the sale at any time.

ChinaAMC Hong Kong's executive director and head of strategic business, He Rui, described the service as both a product innovation and part of a closer connection between traditional and digital finance. The SFC's plans put that connection into operational terms, linking fund trading, payment and the reuse of cash.

Gold and a wider tokenised market are next possibilities

Ng's November 3 speech outlined an Innovation Pathway intended to connect tokenised funds and digital money more closely and improve liquidity and treasury management. Treasury management is how an organisation handles its cash, payments and short term investments.

She said Hong Kong's 17 authorised tokenised retail products covered money market funds, gold products and ETFs, with US$1.3 billion in total assets under management. A gold ETF was identified as a possible next secondary trading pilot, extending the experiment to a different underlying asset.

Ng also described longer term work on using tokenised assets as collateral, bringing more shares and bonds onto blockchain systems, and exploring smart contracts for investment decisions and transaction processes. A smart contract is software that carries out specified actions when programmed conditions are met.

The first two funds provide a defined starting point for those ambitions. Their trading gives the regulator a way to observe pricing, liquidity and platform operations before admitting more products. The next stage will depend on how the approved arrangements function for investors, including those trading outside normal financial market hours.

Key Points

• The SFC announced approval on October 26, 2026, for continuous secondary trading of two ChinaAMC money market funds on a licensed virtual asset platform.
• PantherTrade offers tokenised units in the Hong Kong dollar and US dollar funds under its platform rules.
• Investors can exchange existing units outside normal fund dealing hours, at prices that may differ from NAV.
• Safeguards cover market makers, indicative NAV updates, price alerts, trading controls, disclosures and customer risk confirmation.
• Project Ensemble aims to connect tokenised investments with tokenised deposits so sale proceeds can move more quickly into other uses.
• A tokenised gold ETF is a possible next pilot, while the SFC monitors trading before expanding the programme.