HONG KONG – The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government on Friday gazetted several legal notices to prepare for the onboarding of the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) scheme to the eMPF Platform.

The city’s MPF offsetting arrangement in will cease from May 1, 2025. To tie in with the abolition of the offsetting arrangement, the SAR government will launch a 25-year subsidy scheme for the abolition of the MPF offsetting arrangement to share out the severance payment and long service payment expenses of employers after the abolition of the offsetting arrangement.

READ MORE: MPF offsetting arrangement in HK to cease on May 1

One legal notice specifies March 5, 2025 as "material day" for the BEA (MPF) Master Trust Scheme administered by the Bank of East Asia (Trustees) Limited (BEA), such that BEA is mandated to use the eMPF Platform to perform scheme administration functions in relation to this MPF scheme.

Another notice fixed June 5, 2025 as "material day" for the constituent funds of the BEA (MPF) Master Trust Scheme, mandating BEA to make corresponding reduction in its fees charged on scheme members in relation to the constituent funds of this MPF scheme.

The legal notices will be tabled at the Legislative Council for negative vetting on Dec 18, the government said in a notice.

Relevant legal notices for the remaining MPF schemes will be published in the government gazette when the respective onboarding dates are ascertained having regard to the onboarding preparation status of the MPF trustees concerned, added the government.

Enacted by the LegCo in October 2021, the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes (Amendment) Ordinance 2021 provides the necessary legal basis for the implementation of the eMPF Platform. It confers power on the secretary for financial services and the treasury to gazette legal notices to put certain provisions of the amendment ordinance into operation when the eMPF Platform is ready for use and MPF trustees/schemes are ready to be onboarded.

ALSO READ: All 24 MPF schemes to migrate to eMPF within 18 months

Such legal notices will be published in the Gazette by batches to dovetail with the phased onboarding of MPF trustees in ascending order of their assets-under-management size.

The first two batches of legal notices were gazetted in April and May 2024 respectively to effect the launch of the eMPF Platform and onboarding of the five "early adopters".