Having received permission to set up an Academy of Finance in Hong Kong during the Financial Secretary's budget speech in February, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority has now approved a blueprint. The new institution is to be built on the ashes of an old one.

The HKMA has send its plan off to the minister, along with some findings and recommendations that a panel of experts handed to it in late June. It concurs with the expert group’s view that such an academy ought to be good for Hong Kong’s competitiveness as an international financial centre. The group urged the HKMA (and now the HKMA is urging the Government) that the institute should perform two functions: (i) to be a "centre of excellence" for the development of financial leaders; and (ii) to be a repository of knowledge and a centre for monetary and financial research, especially the kind of research that does not restrict itself to one sector of finance.

The expert group also wanted the Government to "rob Peter to pay Paul" by revamping and expanding the existing Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research (HKIMR), which was established in 1999, to form the new body. It added that the academy should collaborate closely with the Government, the financial regulators (it seems to have separated the two in its own mind), the Financial Services Development Council, the financial industry, tertiary educational institutions and professional training bodies in Hong Kong. There is no intention of making it provide vocational or professional training to practitioners.

The HKMA will set up a preparatory committee to expedite matters shortly, with a view to opening the new academy in the middle of next year, or thereabouts.