The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong will consider whether investment products sales contracts should contain a cooling-off period during which investors may unconditionally terminate the contracts, a senior official said Wednesday.
Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Prof. KC Chan told lawmakers here Wednesday that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government attaches great importance to investor protection and education initiatives.
The commission will also study the feasibility, merits and shortcomings of implementing the proposal with regard to different investment products after thousands of local Lehman Brothers structured products holders complained that they were misguided by brokers.
According to SFC statistics, local banks issued a total of structured products related to Lehman Brothers worth 20.17 billion HK dollars (2.6 billion U.S. dollars) and more than 43,700 citizens in Hong Kong were estimated to have bought them through banks or brokerages.
Between October 2006 and September 2008, the commission produced 12 television-program episodes programs on investor education and broadcast 108 radio program segments, Chan said.
The commission has increased its provisions for investor education in the 2008-09 financial year and is now considering allocating additional resources to this area, he added.
Source: Xinhua
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