European financial liquidity provider obtains approval for its QFII license in China

Flow Traders NV, a European financial technology-enabled liquidity provider, announced on Wednesday that it has obtained regulatory approval for a Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) license in China, allowing the company to trade on-shore in China's domestic markets.

It also received approval to open a Representative Office in Shanghai from the China Securities Regulatory Commission, indicating its belief in the potential of China's financial market.

Flow Traders has been active in the Asia Pacific region since 2008, initially setting-up an office in Singapore and then establishing a trading hub in Hong Kong in 2018.

Dennis Dijkstra, CEO of Flow Traders, said that accessing the China market has been a key component of the firms strategy to grow their footprint in Asia.

"We're delighted to have obtained these important regulatory approvals, and in the coming months we will focus on building our business in China and leveraging our leading market infrastructure to support both global and Chinese investors," Dijkstra said.

"Flow Traders has a proven track record in the ETF (exchange traded fund) market globally and we are fully committed to fulfilling our ambition to create transparent, stable, and orderly markets, while becoming a trusted partner to Chinese market participants. We believe our presence in China's mainland markets will contribute to the sustainable development of the broader China on-shore ETF ecosystem," Dijkstra said.

Flow Traders' expanding operations and focus on the Chinese mainland is expected to increase the availability of liquidity in the Chinese ETF markets. The number of listed ETFs in the Chinese mainland has more than tripled over the last three years to 734, while the market cap for those funds more than doubled to US$200 billion, according to data from the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges.