New captive reaffirms Hong Kong as a global risk management centre

The Insurance Authority (“IA”) has granted new authorization to Wayfoong (Asia) Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the HSBC Group and the first captive insurer formed by a multinational enterprise based in Hong Kong.

Mr Clement Cheung, Chief Executive Officer of the IA, pointed out that “This decision taken by the HSBC Group reflects our growing attractiveness and promising potential as a key captive domicile, leveraging the unique advantages of Hong Kong to facilitate multinational enterprises in managing their global operations. This is also a fine example of how the IA strives and succeeds in elevating the prominence of Hong Kong as an international financial centre and promoting balanced development of different segments of the insurance industry.”

Mr Christopher Hui, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, welcomed the move by the HSBC Group. He said, “Hong Kong has strong foundation in investment and trade, making it an ideal location for global enterprises to access insurance, reinsurance and risk management services, as well as establish captive insurers. The decision of HSBC to set up a captive insurer here underscores its solid confidence and firm commitment in our city. The Government has been working tirelessly with the insurance industry to boost diversified development through various measures, including a 50% tax concession for local captive insurers. Given the current global situation where risks take on new dimensions, we will continuously revisit our policy tools with a view to attracting more multinational enterprises from various regions and of multiple scales to choose Hong Kong as the base of their captive insurers.”

A captive insurer is designed primarily to cope with the multifarious perils borne by large business corporations with a wide geographical footprint, enabling them to nurture internal capacity and optimize resource deployment.

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