Mutual market access was raised as early as January 2013 when Charles Li, the chief executive of HKEx, announced it as an objective in the bourse's three-year strategic plan.
Premier Li said the move aims to promote two-way opening-up and healthy development of the capital market on the mainland and Hong Kong.
"We will carry out a new round of opening-up at a high level," Li said, adding that an important part of this endeavor is to further open up the service sector, including the capital market.
The stock connect program launched successfully in November 2014, but certain mechanisms, such as T+0 securities settlement, Delivery Versus Payment, and difficulties re-creating the common omnibus trading account structure were unfamiliar to international institutional investors.
[2] UCITS funds out of Luxembourg and Ireland faced additional legal questions around the concept of beneficial ownership of A-shares purchased through the link.
[3] Eventually, an enhanced SPSA model provided by Hong Kong custodians alleviated much of the concerns,[4] gradually removing barriers for such funds to receive approval to invest via the stock connect link.