SFC CEO: «Second and Third Generation Are Actually Taking Over»

In order to stay competitive in the future, financial institutions, including traditional players, must adapt to the needs of next generation clients across digitalization and digital assets, according to the SFC chief during Consensus Hong Kong 2026.

Traditional and decentralized finance continue to rapidly converge with many onlookers calling 2026 an inflection point for digital assets and tokenization. According to Julia Leung, CEO of Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), this trend must continue for traditional players to retain market share amid demographic changes and the emergence of Generation Z.

«In order to thrive, stay competitive, stay relevant in this tech-driven financial market, every bank, asset manager, broker should be asking themselves what DLT (distributed ledger technology) or AI should be doing,» Leung remarked during a fireside chat at Consensus Hong Kong 2026, a crypto and web3 summit hosted by digital asset media firm Coindesk.

«The second and the third generation are actually taking over. So for these Gen Z people, they like to invest through a click. You see that traditional finance is actually chasing [this by offering] faster settlement, better products that allow them to fractionalize.»

New Developments

Meanwhile, SFC continues to make efforts to provide regulatory clarity in order to drive Hong Kong to become a leading digital asset hub.

For example, it has launched trading initiatives to enable margin financing for digital assets, initially for Bitcoin and Ether, and crypto-linked perpetual contracts. A circular has been issued about allowing licensed platforms to engage affiliated companies for market making. And the regulator is also readying frameworks for crypto custody, asset management and advisory, which it will be looking to submit to Hong Kong’s legislature this year.

Still, some areas could improve, such as the lack of faster settlement due to the use of fiat cash, and Leung highlighted SFC’s Project Ensemble – an initiative to explore use cases for digital money – as a means to address this by piloting tokenized deposits.

«The Market Runs Ahead of Regulation»

Leung admits that the SFC will persistently be attempting to catch up with fresh trends in cutting-edge technology as «the market runs ahead of regulation» and she believes that the solution is more openness and collaboration.

«The markets should come to us and give us your ideas, like the perps contracts,» Leung added. «So, we welcome the industry to come to us and talk to us and then we will together work on something, which will protect investors in the first place, but at the same time can move the industry forward.»