Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB) is a part of the 15

policy bureaux Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organ ...

for the

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta ...

. They are responsible for developing and executing government policy on

finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of f ...

and treasury. The agency was established on 1 July 2002. The current (since 1 July 2017) Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury is Christopher Hui and the under secretary is Joseph Chan.

History

Financial Services Bureau was established on 1 July 1997. The previous form is Financial Services Branch under

Colonial Hong Kong Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the Britis ...

, headed by the Secretary for Financial Services. Finance Bureau was established on 1 July 1997. The previous form is Finance Branch under

, headed by the Secretary for the Treasury. Financial Services Bureau and Finance Bureau were merged to become Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau on 1 July 2002, headed by the

Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury The Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, head of Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau of the Hong Kong Government, is responsible for the monitoring of financial services sector and maintaining the assets of the government. ...

. A Financial Services Branch and a Treasury Branch were created within the Bureau, each headed by a permanent secretary of D8 rank on the Directorate Pay Scale. In March 2021, the FSTB announced proposed changes to the Companies Registry, where information on companies would begin to be hidden. In response, David Webb said that such changes "will facilitate corruption, fraud and other crimes." The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' also said that those changes could potentially benefit Chinese Communist Party officials, as families of top officials had bought property in Hong Kong using companies. In December 2022, the FSTB announced that it would seek to regulate crowdfunding in Hong Kong, suggesting that all campaigns file an application before launching.

Official Receiver's Office

Official Receiver's Office (ORO, ) is a government department within the bureau. They are responsible for statutory functions relating to insolvency, by being the role of liquidator and trustee of last resort in the administration of both corporate and personal insolvency cases respectively. The Office was established on 1 June 1992, taking over the powers and perform the duties of the Insolvency Division of the then Registrar General's Department. According to Bankruptcy Ordinance (Cap. 6), once the court make a bankruptcy order, the Official Receiver will become the provisional trustee of the property of the bankrupt, and become the liquidator under the Companies (Winding Up and Miscellaneous Provisions) Ordinance (Cap. 32) to conduct personal or company compulsory liquidations.

Past Secretaries

* Treasury affairs ** Deputy Financial Secretary (1945–1989) ** Secretary for the Treasury (1997–2002) ** ''Treasury affairs were handled by the

since 2002'' * Financial services affairs ** Secretary for Monetary Affairs (1976–1993) ** Secretary for Financial Services (1993–2002) **

(2002–present)

References

External links

Hong Kong SAR Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau
{{DEFAULTSORT:Financial Services And The Treasury Bureau Hong Kong Government Hong Kong government policy bureaux 2002 establishments in Hong Kong Government agencies established in 2002