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ByteDance applied last December to register a trademark called
Songshu Zhengquan, which translates to Squirrel Securities, in
Hong Kong, the city’s online intellectual property database
shows.
The trademark application is being "examined", according to the
database, and areas of business it applied for include
"computerized financial information services, stock trading,
brokerage services and stock exchange quotations."
The business is still in its infancy and ByteDance currently has
just one full-time employee assigned to it, according to a
person familiar with the situation.
The company has obtained a license but any official launch of
the online stockbroker business is not imminent, the source
added, declining to be named as the information isn't public.
ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The company pulled its hit TikTok app out of Hong Kong in July
after Beijing established a new national security law on the
semi-autonomous city. It is also trying to avert a ban on TikTok
in the United States and is in talks with Microsoft and Twitter
to sell its business there.
Other sources said that ByteDance's is prioritising expansion
into education technology and gaming, rather than financial
technology.
However, a Beijing-based fintech banker who spoke on condition
of anonymity, said that it made sense for the tech giant to
explore opportunities in Hong Kong rather than the mainland,
where the online wealth management market is dominated by
Alibaba’s affiliate Ant Group.
Other Chinese-owned online stockbrokers in Hong Kong include
Tiger Brokers and Tencent-backed Futu.
(Reporting by Yingzhi Yang in Beijing and Brenda Goh in
Shanghai; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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