Hong Kong - The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) on Wednesday posted its revenue and other income for the first half of the year reaching 14.076 billion HK dollars, marking a 33 percent year-on-year increase and setting a new record for the group's half-year performance.
Driven by positive market sentiment, growing investor appetite for non-U.S. dollars assets and increasing participation of international and the Chinese mainland investors, the average daily turnover in securities trading for the first half of 2025 was 240.2 billion HK dollars, up 118 percent year-on-year.
The Hong Kong ETF market continued to deliver impressive growth during the period, reaching a record average daily turnover of 33.8 billion HK dollars, up 184 percent compared with the same period last year. Stock Connect also continued to gain traction during the period, achieving record half-yearly turnover in both Northbound and Southbound Trading. Northbound Bond Connect also set a new trading record with the average daily turnover up 3 percent year-on-year.
In the first half of 2025, Hong Kong regained its position as the world's No. 1 IPO venue. IPO equity funds raised were more than eight times that of the first half of 2024, and the number of active IPO applications increased to 207 as of June 30, 2025, more than double the 84 applications as at Dec. 31, 2024.
Bonnie Chan, chief executive officer of the HKEX, said that the group enters the second half of 2025 with new initiatives that are underway to further enhance the competitiveness and attractiveness of our markets, including preparations for a shorter cash market settlement cycle, the expansion of paperless listing regime, as well as implementing enhanced IPO price discovery requirements and the first phase of reduced minimum spreads. (1 U.S. dollar equals 7.81 HK dollars)