Photo taken on March 13, 2018 shows the headquarters of the People's Bank of China. (Xinhua/Cai Yang)

 
Multiple Chinese cross-border security broker companies are operating without financial licenses, said Sun Tianqi, head of the Financial Stability Bureau under the People’s Bank of China, at the China Finance 40 Forum.
 
Sun said some cross-border security brokers only possess overseas operation licenses instead of China-approved licenses, but they provide financial services to domestic investors such as transaction services in US and Hong Kong stock markets.
 
Sun pointed out two companies registered in the Cayman Islands and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region but did not mention their names. Reuters said in a report that the two companies might be the US listed Tiger Brokers and Futu Inc.
 
By press time, the share prices of Tiger Brokers and Futu Inc had fallen over 20 percent and 17 percent in pre-market trading in the US stock market on Thursday.