Hong Kong Money Lender Licence Conditions 2026: DSR Caps, Referees and Complaints

Last updated: 14 September 2026 / 最後更新：2026年9月14日

From 1 August 2026, some licensed money lenders must comply with a new debt-servicing-ratio (DSR) cap and a revised condition that prohibits them from asking loan applicants to provide a loan referee. These are conditions on a licence, not a new statutory release from every affected loan.

The essential distinction is this: sections 23 and 29 of the Money Lenders Ordinance do not themselves state that every licence-condition breach automatically discharges a debt or sets aside an existing judgment. Whether the same facts support reopening under section 25, or another statutory or contractual remedy, depends on the agreement, licensing position, interest and charges, sales conduct and the borrower’s circumstances. Suspicion of a breach is not proof that the repayment obligation has ended.

“A company offering a loan” is not a single statutory category. The consequences differ significantly.

• Licensed money lender. The Companies Registry’s money-lender search provides the legal name, licence number, business address and status. Conditions on the individual licence are a separate layer of information.
• Apparently unlicensed money lender. Section 23 may restrict recovery by a lender who was unlicensed at the relevant times, subject to its precise scope and the court’s statutory powers. The apparent position alone is not proof that the debt has disappeared.
• Exempt person or exempt loan. Authorised institutions such as banks, and certain persons or loans covered by sections 2, 3, 33A and 33B together with Schedule 1, may sit outside the ordinary licensing regime (section 33C allows the Legislative Council to amend Schedule 1). The 2026 conditions bind the relevant licence; they do not turn an exempt loan into a licensed-money-lender transaction. These categories appear in the Money Lenders Ordinance (Cap. 163) .

Company registration, business registration and money-lender licensing are different regimes. The licence number, address and legal name on the agreement help distinguish similarly named but legally separate companies.

The authentic English text of section 11(6) provides the legal basis for conditions:

This site's reading distinguishes the statutory power to impose conditions from the conditions actually attached to a particular licence. A standard template is not proof that every existing licence has been rewritten.

The Companies Registry says that the additional and revised conditions are imposed when a licence is granted or renewed with effect from 5 May 2026, and take effect on 1 August 2026. The entire market did not necessarily switch to the same conditions on 1 August. The dates on which the individual licence was granted or renewed, and the conditions actually endorsed on it, matter. The Registry’s licensing-conditions page links to the pro-forma set of 16 conditions and the April 2026 Guidelines.

The Registry's public list provides identity, address and expiry information; this is different from the conditions on an individual licence. An expiry date is not proof of the applicable condition edition.

The following records serve different purposes:

• the actual licence and its conditions define the licensee's obligations;
• application, approval and drawdown dates and agreement versions establish the transaction chronology; and
• the Registry's Money Lenders Section provides licensing-condition enquiries through 2867 2632.

An expiry-date calculation alone therefore cannot establish a reliable percentage of licences carrying the new conditions.

The Registry’s April 2026 Guidelines define a low-income earner as someone with monthly income of HK$12,000 or less. When the relevant licensee considers an unsecured personal loan for such an applicant, these caps apply:

DSR compares the borrower’s total monthly repayment obligations for all outstanding unsecured personal loans, after including the proposed new loan, with monthly income. It is not merely “new-loan repayment divided by income”, and it is not “principal divided by annual income”.

The worked example below is the Registrar's own. Annex 8 of the April 2026 Guidelines carries four illustrative cases. Its shared preamble sets the ceiling:

and Case 4 runs the arithmetic on an applicant who already owes elsewhere:

This site's reading of that example: it shows how the ratio is computed and nothing more. It neither guarantees approval nor establishes affordability, and the income definition and the ratio figures are promulgated by the Registrar under Condition 16(ii) rather than fixed by statute.

For income assessment:

• fixed-income applicants are assessed on current monthly income; a future pay rise should not be treated as current income;
• for non-fixed income, the Guidelines use average monthly income over the latest three months or 12 months, whichever is higher, based on supporting documents; and
• paragraph 104 distinguishes two information sources: a licensee participating in Credit Data Smart uses the personal credit reference report for assessment; a non-participating licensee obtains a written debt declaration and attaches it to the loan agreement.

The cap does not replace the affordability assessment under existing Condition 15. A licensee must still assess affordability even if the numerical cap is met. Conversely, Condition 16 contains no exception allowing the borrower to agree to exceed the cap. Condition 16(ii) provides for the Registrar to promulgate, review and revise the income definition and ratio details; the HK$12,000, 35% and 40% figures come from Annex 8 of the April 2026 Guidelines.

A compliant ratio does not settle the repayment-period condition

The Guidelines add a separate limit for a low-income borrower employed on a fixed-term contract. Paragraph 106 says the repayment period for any unsecured personal loan “should not exceed the remaining term” of that contract, and, where there are multiple fixed-term contracts, “shall not extend beyond the last expiry date of these employment contracts”. Condition 16(b) itself is not confined to fixed-term contracts: it speaks of a repayment period that exceeds the remaining term of the borrower's employment contract. Reducing the monthly instalment by extending repayment therefore does not establish compliance merely because DSR falls below the cap.

Revised Condition 13 prohibits the relevant licensee from requesting referee information from an intending borrower or obtaining it from that borrower in respect of a loan application; it is not limited to compulsory provision. Referee information the lender already holds is dealt with by the condition itself, not only by the Guidelines:

Guidelines paragraph 82 repeats that requirement. This site's reading: the obligation is a term of the licence, so a breach of it engages section 29(1)(c); a guideline paragraph alone would not.

Paragraphs 83–84 of the Registry's guidance on Condition 13 state that a loan referee has no legal or moral obligation to repay the loan; Condition 10(a) also prohibits recovery from the referee by the licensee or its collector. A collection call prompted by a referee entry does not establish a guarantee:

• referee, borrower and guarantor are different capacities; the caller's label does not establish liability;
• call times, numbers, words used and company identity concern who used the information and how;
• correspondence and delivery records concern requests made and received; and
• the Registry's complaints page directs complaints of harassment or improper collection to nearby police stations; the Police emergency number, 999 , is for immediate danger.

A “referee” label differs from a signed guarantee. A guarantee, indemnity, joint-borrowing document or other undertaking requires separate analysis of the actual instrument.

Relevant money-lending advertisements must be fair and reasonable and must not contain misleading information. They must prominently present the licensee’s complaint hotline and the prescribed risk warning, or a later version promulgated by the Registrar; the warning must also be clearly audible in an audio component (Condition 9 and Guidelines Annex 6). Condition 9 prescribes the wording, in both languages:

The warning tells the reader not to pay intermediaries at all; it is not confined to a complaint about the size of a fee. This strengthens disclosure and presentation; it is not a general ban on loan advertising. The complete advertisement, publication date and publisher identity concern the applicable version and what was actually displayed.

No—not automatically. Section 29(1)(c) makes carrying on money-lending business otherwise than in accordance with licence conditions an offence. Section 32(1)(a) provides a maximum level-6 fine and two years' imprisonment. Under the Criminal Procedure Ordinance (Cap. 221), section 113B and Schedule 8 , level 6 is HK$100,000; section 113B(3) permits the Chief Executive in Council to amend the amounts by regulation to reflect inflation. Cap. 163 section 32(2)–(3) also provides for licence disqualification after conviction and its effect on a licence. On an application by the Registrar or the Commissioner of Police, section 14(1)(c) allows the Licensing Court to revoke or suspend a licence for a serious breach of any licence condition. Those regulatory and criminal consequences are not themselves a release of the borrower's debt.

Section 23 principally addresses licensing status at the relevant times, with an equitable proviso allowing the court to permit recovery; it does not equate every condition breach with unlicensed lending. Read together, sections 23, 25 and 29 distinguish the following:

• sections 23 and 29 do not themselves state that every condition breach automatically discharges principal or interest or sets aside an existing judgment; civil consequences require analysis of the applicable cause of action, defence and facts;
• none of the five Hong Kong judgments set out below decides what a breach of a licence condition does to a lender's right to recover. The two that turn on licensing turn on whether a licence was needed, not on what a licence requires;
• the same facts may still matter under another provision. For example, section 25 permits the court to reopen an extortionate transaction. Under section 25(2), a transaction is extortionate if it requires the debtor or a relative to make payments that are grossly exorbitant, or if it otherwise grossly contravenes ordinary principles of fair-dealing. Section 25(4)(c) also requires regard to evidence adduced concerning other relevant considerations; and
• the written agreement, statutory disclosures, true annual percentage rate, charges, misrepresentations, pressure, affordability material and licensing status can all affect the analysis.

Cap. 163 does contain a provision that makes an agreement unenforceable with no further discretion — but it turns on the rate, not on a licence condition. Section 24(1) makes lending at an effective rate exceeding 48 per cent per annum an offence, and section 24(2) provides:

The 48 per cent is the rate specified in section 24(1); the Legislative Council may alter that rate by resolution under section 24(3), and an agreement in force when the rate is altered keeps the rate that applied when it came into force. Section 25(3) sets the threshold at which a transaction is presumed extortionate:

The Legislative Council may likewise alter the 36 per cent by resolution under section 25(9). This site's reading: both are rate provisions. Neither says anything about a breach of a licence condition. A lender can satisfy both while breaching a condition, and can breach neither while charging a rate that is lawful.

The Registry's complaint process is not a civil-court defence or stay procedure. A complaint does not stop interest, recovery or a court deadline. A particular document's deadline and legal effect are matters on which a Hong Kong lawyer can give individual advice.

What five Hong Kong judgments did to the parties

None of the five judgments below decides what a breach of a licence condition does to a lender's right to recover. What they show is what the Ordinance's own sections did to real parties.

*1 · Actually Financial Ltd v Wong Pui Miu [2022] HKDC 82, DCCJ 3317/2020, District Court, 20 January 2022.* A registered and licensed money lender advanced HK$1,200,000 at 33.6% per annum and claimed HK$1,305,841.66 plus continuing interest. The court found that the lender and an intermediary had acted together, and that a HK$600,000 consultancy fee, HK$201,600 taken back as instalments and HK$47,480 of further charges all fell within section 27(3):

Outcome: the licensed lender recovered nothing, and bore the borrower's costs with a certificate for counsel. Limits, on this site's reading: what the lender breached was section 27(3) of the Ordinance, not a condition attached to its licence. The section 27(4) set-off at [157] is written as a hypothetical and is not a sum the lender was ordered to repay. The judgment measures the loan against the 60% limit in force before 30 December 2022; the rate now specified in section 24(1) is 48 per cent, and the Legislative Council may alter that rate by resolution under section 24(3).

*2 · Shun On Finance Ltd v Wong Fung Kwan and another [2022] HKDC 240, DCMP 1428/2016, District Court, 25 March 2022.* The plaintiff was a licensed money lender at all material times. It allowed an agent whose background it had never checked to conduct the negotiation, and the place of negotiation stated in the agreement was not where the first defendant had negotiated at all — which the court found to be a contravention of section 18(2)(j). The court found no collusion, and exercised the discretion in section 18(3):

The orders were these:

Outcome: HK$400,000 of the HK$600,000 loan was set off and only HK$200,000 remained enforceable against the first defendant; the lender was assessed at about two-thirds culpable ([80]); its claim against the second defendant was dismissed ([110]); her beneficial interest was declared to rank ahead of the lender's ([112]) over the HK$1,613,647.38 of sale proceeds paid into court ([4]); and the lender was ordered to pay her costs and two-thirds of the first defendant's ([113]). Limits, on this site's reading: the provision breached was section 18(2)(j), a requirement about what a loan agreement must state — not a condition attached to the licence, and the judgment nowhere connects the breach to the licence. The proportions in it are not a debt-reduction formula for any other borrower.

*3 · Yeung So Lai v Art Excel Ltd [2025] HKCA 957, CACV 413/2024, Court of Appeal, 5 November 2025.* Here the consequence ran the other way. A guarantor argued that the lender was an unlicensed money lender, so that the debt was unrecoverable under section 23. The Court of Appeal held that she had not established that the lender was a money lender at all, and that the exemption applied on its plain words:

Outcome: a guarantor who had had a statutory demand for HK$120,000,000 of principal plus HK$5,235,616.44 of interest set aside at first instance faced a bankruptcy petition after 21 days, with the costs of the appeal and below ordered against her. This decides whether a licence was needed at all, not what a licence requires. Note that Art Excel Ltd is the “Respondent” in this judgment and is the party that won.

*4 · GG v LL Ltd [2024] HKCFI 2302, HCSD 21/2024, Court of First Instance, 5 September 2024 — reversed by case 3 above.* That the lender was unlicensed was common ground; the dispute was whether the loan was an exempted loan. The judge set aside a statutory demand, and no more:

Outcome: the statutory demand alone was set aside, with costs to the applicant. Nothing else — the loan stood, the security stood, and no money moved. Limits, on this site's reading: the section 23 proviso was expressly left for another forum. These are the same proceedings as case 3, anonymised at first instance, so this decision cannot be cited without the reversal of 5 November 2025 in the same breath.

*5 · HKSAR v Lau Sui Hing and Lau Sui Cheong, CACC 111/2008, Court of Appeal, 21 October 2008; no neutral citation.* Not a licensed money lender at all. The charge was dealing with property reasonably believed to represent the proceeds of an indictable offence, and the pleaded predicate was lending at an excessive rate:

Outcome: the convictions stand and leave to appeal against conviction was refused; the first applicant was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment and the second to detention in a Rehabilitation Centre. A second borrower repaid not less than HK$60,000 on a HK$30,000 loan. Limits, on this site's reading: these were unlicensed lenders prosecuted over the proceeds of crime, not licensees in breach of a condition. It too recites the superseded 60% limit.

What happened to the parties, in one table

A limited comparison: the UK's Consumer Credit Act 1974, section 140A(1)–(2) , allows a court, for a credit relationship within that section, to assess unfairness by reference to agreement terms, enforcement and other acts or omissions. Hong Kong's Cap. 163, section 25, addresses extortionate transactions under its own statutory criteria. The UK's unfair-relationship concept is not a civil remedy automatically created by Hong Kong's 2026 licence conditions.

The roles are divided:

• Licensing Court: a magistrate hears grant and renewal matters, grants licences and imposes conditions.
• Companies Registry, Money Lenders Section: processes applications, renewals and endorsements, maintains the public register and publishes guidance. Its official complaints page says the Registry investigates alleged non-compliance with licence conditions other than those enforced by Police; suspected breaches of the Ordinance or Police-enforced conditions are referred to Police.
• Hong Kong Police Force: enforces the Money Lenders Ordinance and follows up suspected offences, Police-enforced conditions and improper debt collection.

The Registry and Police may object during grant or renewal proceedings. Section 11(2)(b) also allows any other person to object if the notice requirements are met, or with the Licensing Court’s leave. Section 11(4) is not a separate right to object: it obliges the court to hear evidence from a person who appears under section 11(2)(b). Section 13(4) applies sections 8 to 11 to an application for renewal. This is a licensing process—not a civil claim that cancels an individual debt or awards compensation.

These records concern different questions of contract, licensing, affordability and institutional jurisdiction; completeness does not guarantee a successful complaint or claim:

• the agreement, schedules, refinancing or restructuring documents and repayment table;
• a copy of the licence, licence number, advertisements and intermediary information;
• application, approval and drawdown dates, income declaration and supporting proof;
• every outstanding unsecured personal loan and its monthly repayment;
• WhatsApp messages, texts, emails, call logs, recordings and payment proof;
• collection letters, court papers and every response deadline; and
• for a DSR dispute, the income figure, existing obligations, proposed repayment and ratio calculation.

Condition 12 requires a licensed money lender to maintain complaint-handling procedures. The Registry's official complaints page separately explains the institutional roles:

• Companies Registry, Money Lenders Section: 2867 2634, mlu@cr.gov.hk;
• Police Licensing Office, Money Lenders Licensing Section: 2860 3574;
• improper collection or harassment: the official page directs complaints to nearby police stations; the Police emergency number, 999 , is for immediate danger; and
• banks, restricted licence banks and deposit-taking companies: the page identifies the Hong Kong Monetary Authority as the relevant regulator.

“Breach of the new law” does not identify the disputed condition. The licence, transaction dates, particular requirement, calculation and attachments connect a complaint to the relevant obligation.

The Registry’s online series of full standard-condition documents starts on 1 December 2016, but that is not the beginning of licence conditions. The Government's reply to a Legislative Council question of 20 February 2013 records what came before it:

That reply records the Licensing Court accepting the Police's suggestion to impose new conditions from January 2011, and names debt collection as their subject. It does not say that every licence then in force was endorsed with them. The Registry’s condition archive shows the published series from 2016 onward. The archive's start date, the regime's origin and the civil effect of a loan are distinct questions.

1. The public list shows an expired licence. Does that prove the lender was unlicensed?

Not necessarily. Where a renewal application is still undetermined, section 13(5) can deem the licence to continue in force in the specified circumstances. The status at the relevant transaction date matters.

2. My monthly income is exactly HK$12,000. Which cap applies?

The 40% cap. The 35% band is HK$6,000 or less; the 40% band is HK$6,001–HK$12,000.

3. If my DSR is below the cap, must the lender approve me?

No. The cap is not an approval promise. The lender must still conduct its separate affordability and credit assessment.

4. Must I repay a friend’s loan because I was named as referee?

Not merely because you were called a loan referee. A signed guarantee, indemnity or joint-borrowing document raises a separate question about the obligation undertaken.

5. Can I stop paying when I suspect a breach?

Suspicion of a breach is not proof that a debt has ended. Regulatory consequences, enforceability and the procedural requirements of court documents are distinct legal questions; this page does not determine an individual's repayment obligation.

HKGoodLawyer is a legal-document explanation and lawyer-referral platform, not a law firm, and does not provide legal advice. Its general explanations do not determine the enforceability of an individual loan. Identity-card numbers, bank details, signatures, home addresses and third-party data are sensitive: please redact unnecessary personal information before uploading.

This article provides general Hong Kong legal information. It is not legal advice and does not create a solicitor-client relationship. Law and licence conditions can change, and outcomes depend on the facts and documents. Individual professional assistance is available for court papers, imminent deadlines or safety risks.

Primary sources

The consolidated Cap. 163 text cited is dated 2022-12-30; Cap. 221 is dated 2026-05-14. The 2026 licence conditions and April guidelines are separately published administrative documents.

• Money Lenders Ordinance (Cap. 163)
• Companies Registry: Licensing Conditions of Money Lenders Licence
• Companies Registry: Guidelines on Licensing Conditions (April 2026)
• Companies Registry: Complaints against Licensed Money Lenders
• Companies Registry: Search for Licensed Money Lenders

Judgments quoted in this article:

• Actually Financial Ltd v Wong Pui Miu [2022] HKDC 82 (DCCJ 3317/2020)
• Shun On Finance Ltd v Wong Fung Kwan and another [2022] HKDC 240 (DCMP 1428/2016)
• Yeung So Lai v Art Excel Ltd [2025] HKCA 957 (CACV 413/2024)
• GG v LL Ltd [2024] HKCFI 2302 (HCSD 21/2024) — reversed by the decision above it
• HKSAR v Lau Sui Hing and Lau Sui Cheong, CACC 111/2008 (no neutral citation)
• The Government's reply to a Legislative Council question of 20 February 2013 (LCQ3)