Shift from intermediaries to markets - derivative markets are evolving to meet the diverse financial services of a wider range of users. Markets are helping users to manage risks more efficiently. These are some of the questions that we should ask when we seek to enhance Hong Kong's position as an international financial centre. Hong Kong as an International Financial Centre 7. Technology and globalization means that higher efficiency and faster telecommunications enable markets to cut out the intermediary by connecting the consumer directly with the producer.
Technology makes the past obsolete, destroying old franchises and creating new value.
What Hong Kong can do today, someone with access to Internet can do tomorrow with the higher speed and at lower costs. Thus, despite her past and present success, the future of Hong Kong's role as a leading international financial centre is by no means assured. In short, we cannot be complacent. Hong Kong is home to Asia's third largest stock market and an active rapidly growing debt market. Hong Kong's forex and derivatives market is the eighth largest in the world.