Fidelity International (FIL) has secured Chinese regulatory approval to conduct business in China’s $3.7 trillion mutual fund industry.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission granted a licence that enables the firm to offer onshore investment products and solutions to retail clients and asset management services to institutional clients in China, the company said in a statement on Friday.
“We aim to build a diversified financial services company with a strong footprint in pensions and asset management in China,” said Helen Huang, general manager at the fund unit FIL Fund Management (China) Company.
China last week officially allowed people in the public pension system to invest in funds and other financial products under a tax-incentivised system.
UK-headquartered FIL has over 1,900 employees in China across three offices in Shanghai, Dalian and Beijing.
The approval came two years after the company applied to enter the local retail fund market when China removed a foreign ownership cap on fund management companies.
FIL is the third global asset manager to gain approval to establish a fully-owned retail fund unit in China, two weeks after U.S. manager Neuberger Berman secured the same regulatory green light. BlackRock secured approval in June 2021.
Reuters