The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission has come under fire for its fund approval process in a letter addressed to the chair of the SFC’s process review panel from a “fund company market development executive”, seen by Ignites Asia.

The letter criticises what the complainant describes as the regulator’s painfully slow fund approval process, its lack of transparency with the process and the absence of a channel for fund companies with pending fund applications to raise concerns.

In describing frustration over the SFC’s fund approval process, the complainant goes to the extent of describing a “12-month black hole”, where fund applications are killed. Getting approval 10 months after submitting an application would be considered lucky, the letter says.