Frequently Asked Question

Currently, you can trade all securities listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong ("SEHK") through our e-Banking Services. (Excluding NASDAQ & iShares - USD trading)

You can still trade through other channels such as the automated trading hotline, designated branches or our operator-assisted hotline.

You may go to hangseng.com and click "Branch and ATM Addresses" under "Contact Us" to get the details about designated branches for securities trading/IPO shares subscription.

Online trading allows you to get access to important trading information at a glance before you make an investment decision, e.g. your stock holdings, account balance and the latest stock price movement. It also allows you to place your order anytime, 24 hours a day.

If you have set up securities account under your Integrated Account, you can trade online immediately. If you have not set up your securities account yet, please send your request online through the "Account Activation" (desktop version) / "Securities Account Activation" (Personal Banking mobile app) Screen under "Other Related Services" Section of "Investment" in Hang Seng Personal e-Banking or visit our branches to open one. To trade RMB denominated products listed in HKExH K E x, you must maintain an Integrated account with its securities sub-account and Renminbi savings account activated. To trade securities online, customers are required to use Mobile Security Key or Security Device for authentication.

Simply go to "Securities" > "Securities Trading" > "HK Stocks". Click relevant order type. Then enter order details by selecting buy or sell, inputting the stock code, price and quantity and specifying the expiry date.

You can place new orders at following times:

After you have entered and confirmed the order/ instruction details, we will send you an online acknowledgement with a reference number. This only represents acknowledgement of receipt of your order/ instruction by the Bank. There is no guarantee that your order will be executed or executed in a timely manner in the market. The Bank will try its best to process your order but it may NOT be performed due to fluctuations in stock price, insufficient market liquidity, system failure or any other event beyond the control of the Bank. Moreover, if you DO NOT receive an order reference number, please check whether your order has been accepted via the following channels to avoid duplicated orders.

Assuming only buy orders are placed, and no receivable fund has or will be taking place before the buy orders are settled.

When a buy order has been placed and accepted successfully, our system will calculate the amount of funds that is needed to be held up for that buy order. The system deducts the amount needed from your available balance by truncating the decimal places of the amount necessary for each individual buy order. This will be the amount ($X) held up from your settlement account. At the end of the day, our system will re-calculate the total amount by adding up the exact amount needed for all buy orders placed. And only after the summation, the decimal places of this total amount will be truncated to the nearest dollar amount. Under normal circumstance, the re-calculated amount ($Y) will be more than the previously held amount (if not the same), hence the amount in your settlement account will be reduced on the next day. And in fact, our system will hold up the difference of the 2 calculated amount ($Y-$X=$Zdollar Y minus dollar X equal dollar Z) so that the amount available in your settlement account will now be adjusted to $Y.

On settlement day (T+plus2), the actual amount needed for the buy orders (without any truncation) will be debited from your settlement account, and the previously re-calculated $Y will be released as a result. However, $Z (the difference of amount being held up by our system as defined above) will only be released by the next day.

Please note that irrespective of the amount held, the actual required fund at settlement will be debited for the executed buy orders. Please ensure you have maintained sufficient fund in your settlement account for settlement. If the trade is settled with insufficient fund in your account, overdraft charges will be incurred in accordance with the Bank fees and charges table.

For normal limit orders and at-auction limit orders, the hold amount will be equal to your specified price xtimes specified quantity xtimes 101%.

For market orders, the hold amount will be equal to nominal price xtimes your specified quantity xtimes 101%

On the execution date, when the purchase order is fully executed, the hold amount will be the executed price xtimes executed quantity plus 0.5% brokerage (minimum HKD100100 hong kong dollar ) and other charges such as stamp duty, accrued interest resulted from the purchase of bonds listed on SEHK (if applicable) etc. On T+plus2 settlement date, the deposit charge, if any, will be collected separately, while the brokerage rebate, if any, will be netted off from the settlement amount.

For at-auction orders, please note that the executed price (i.e. final IEP) is not known at the time of order input and may not fall within or largely deviate from your expected price range, especially for orders executed in pre-opening session. The hold amount of at-auction orders would depend on various factors and may vary from time to time according to the market conditions. The hold amount of at-auction orders may be much more than that of other order types, and the Bank reserves the right to determine the hold amount for At-Auction order without prior notice.

The order status will show orders placed in the past 12 days.

We will send you an email to your "Inbox Message" on any execution result for orders placed via Hang Seng Personal e-Banking. If you have enrolled to our Securities Instant Order Confirmation Service, the execution results will be sent to your mobile phone in the form of a text message. With effect from 27 June 2016, integrated account securities customer^{1Footnote remark 1} who already registered Hang Seng Personal e-Banking and with a valid mobile phone number (either a Hong Kong or overseas mobile number) provided to the Bank, the Bank will notify you the execution result of your securities orders placed via the Bank by SMS. No charge and pre-registration are required for this arrangement.

You can also check the execution details in the "Order Status" by clicking the corresponding "Details" button of the order or you can call the Manned Securities Trading Hotline to check the order status.

Please use order status enquiry function via Personal e-Banking or call our Automated Securities Trading Hotline at 2166 68882 1 6 6 6 8 8 8 to check the updated status of your order for local securities. You can also use our Instant Order Confirmation Service to get instant notification of your order execution results through SMS via your mobile phone number. With effect from 27 June 2016, integrated account securities customer^{1Footnote remark 1} who already registered Hang Seng Personal e-Banking and with a valid mobile phone number (either a Hong Kong or overseas mobile number) provided to the Bank, the Bank will notify you the execution result of your securities orders placed via the Bank by SMS.

No. The execution results of every order executed on same day will be consolidated for charges calculation.

Yes, you can specify any buy price not lower than half of the ask price and sell price not higher than twice of the bid price. Starting from 3 May 2016, order with specified price outside 24 spreads would be monitored by our system and passed to Orion Trading Platform – Securities Market (OTP-C) once it falls within the acceptable range.

Yes, the order price should follow the price spread pre-defined by HKExH K E x. Different securities have different price spread, please refer to the second schedule of the Rules of the Exchange provided by HKExH K E x for details (http://www.hkex.com.hk/eng/rulesreg/traderules/sehk/Documents/sch-2_eng.pdfh t t p colon slash slash w w w dot h k e x dot c o m dot h k slash e n g slash r u l e s r e g slash t r a d e r u l e s slash s e h k slash D o c u m e n t s slash s c h hyphen 2 underscore e n g dot p d f).

For example, according to the second schedule, stock X and Y belong to the securities in Part A and Part B of the price spread table respectively. When the order price of stock X changes from below HKD20.0020 hong kong dollar to above HKD20.0020 hong kong dollar , the price spread will change from HKD0.02Two cents hong kong dollar to HKD0.05Fifty cents hong kong dollar .

Our securities system is ready for the OTP-C system. If the order type/ nature is supported by OTP-C, your securities order can be passed electronically and directly from us to SEHK. The order execution result will be returned from SEHK to us through the same electronic path directly. However, the time needed to update the execution result in our e-Banking system are affected by various factors, such as transaction volume, data transmission from/to OTP-C, etc.

In case of system disruption or there are cases where orders including amendment and cancellation requests cannot be handled by OTP-C, the orders will be processed manually by the Bank which could cause a delay in order execution. Exceptional orders which cannot be handled by OTP-C include but not limited to odd lots, executed market price better than order price, prices below HKD0.010.01 hong kong dollar, quantities over 3000 lots and orders related to stocks without a previous closing price etc.

The trading and clearing services (including Stock Connect Northbound Trading) will continue, please refer to HKEX website and announcements for details. If HKEX decides to close the Hong Kong securities markets under exceptional situation but SSE/SZSE remains open, we may reject new order placement and only accept order cancellation until SSE ⁄ SZSE market closes.

We reserve the right to amend the above operation from time to time.

Yes, you can specify an order expiry date. Please set your order expiry date from the list of dates provided under the "Good Till" function of Securities Trading page.

Yes.

Yes.

For example, you have placed an order to buy 3,000 shares of stock A at HKD8.008 hong kong dollar, and 2,000 shares of which have been bought successfully in the market :

You can amend or cancel any outstanding order through various trading channels (Hang Seng Personal e-Banking, Automated Securities Trading Hotline, designated branches or operator-assisted hotline) by providing the order reference number during the service hours of the channel used.

On your submission of the order amendment or cancellation instruction to the Bank, an acknowledgement page of your order instructions will be prompted. Given the market conditions and the time required to process, the acknowledgement only represents the receipt of your instruction by the Bank. It does not confirm that your instruction had been processed duly. You MUST check the "Order Status" for the updated order details and order status.

However, please note the following principles:

You can use the "Order Status" function to check your order status anytime. For all Prestige Banking, Preferred Banking, Green Banking and Integrated Account customers (excluding Integrated Account customers aged below 18.), You may also call our Automated Securities Trading Hotline to check the order status.

Here are the explanation of the order status :

IPO order can be placed through our website at www.hangseng.com, Automated Securities Trading Hotline and designated branches. All Prestige Banking, Preferred Banking, Green Banking and Integrated Account customers with CSR Phone Banking Service (excluding Integrated Account customers aged below 18.), can also apply through our operator-assisted hotline.

Currently, overseas securities trading can only be traded through our dedicated operator-assisted hotline.

You can use the "Transfer" function in "HK Stocks Trading" to do the transfer anytime (only available in Hang Seng Personal e-Banking (desktop version)).

Market order is an order which client does not set a limit price. Such order will be executed at prevailing market at time of execution. The execution price may deviate from client's expected price at time of order placing especially at the beginning of morning and afternoon trading sessions as many accumulated pre-market opening orders have to be handled.

We will submit your Market Order to the market (i.e. The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong ("SEHK")) with one try only for auto-matching and execution by matching it up to 10 best price queues at SEHK (i.e. the prevailing best queue and up to the 10th queue at 9 spreads away at the time when the market order is processed by the Bank) and up to a maximum of 20 spreads from the prevailing nominal price (as the case may be). Any unfilled quantity of your market order as a result of the above mechanism will be automatically cancelled immediately.

Examples (for illustration only):
Customer has placed a market order to sell of 500,000 shares of Stock XYZ.

Assume that the prevailing nominal price is HKD55 hong kong dollar with price spread of HKD0.010.01 hong kong dollar.

Under the condition that the Bank will match the market order up to a maximum of 20 spreads from the prevailing nominal price, the Bank will only execute the order when the price is HKD4.80 or above in this example

No. Any unfilled quantity of your market order will be automatically cancelled immediately and will not be queued in the market. You may place another order as you wish.

You are advised to use the "order status enquiry function" to check the order status of your market order via Hang Seng Personal e-Banking and Automated Securities Trading Hotline or call Manned Securities Trading Hotline to see if your market order has been fully executed, partially executed or cancelled.

And, we will send you an email to your "In-box Message" on any execution result for orders placed via Hang Seng Personal e-Banking. If you have enrolled to our Securities Instant Order Confirmation Service, the execution results will also be sent to your mobile phone in the form of a text message. With effect from 27 June 2016, integrated account securities customer^{1Footnote remark 1} who already registered Hang Seng Personal e-Banking and with a valid mobile phone number (either a Hong Kong or overseas mobile number) provided to the Bank, the Bank will notify you the execution result of your securities orders placed via the Bank by SMS.

No. Only "One Day Order" for "Market Order" is available.

You can use "Market Order" to sell odd lots. Purchase of odd lots is not accepted. For sale orders via "Market Order" which involve odd lot, due to the liquidity issue of the odd lot market, the execution price of odd lot share(s) will be lower than the prevailing board lot market price. In addition, we may only get quote(s) and execute the odd lot trade(s) for you through one of the few brokers as may be designated by us from time to time, while we will act in your best interests with relevant best execution factors taken into account in relation to your order(s).

Customers can place the order via Hang Seng Personal e-Banking, Automated Securities Trading Hotlines, Manned Phone Service and designated branches.

The Bank may in its absolute discretion execute the purchase order in whole or in part. Customers must settle any resulting overdraft in the settlement account before T+plus2 days. The Bank reserves the right to sell the related securities at any time to setoff the overdraft without prior notice to the customers.

You can sell odd lots via any one of our trading channels. Odd lots can only be sold in the following ways:

Since odd lot orders cannot be handled by the "Automatic Order Matching and Execution System" of SEHK, all the odd lot orders can only be traded via "odd lot brokers" and sold at the prevailing odd lot market price. Due to the liquidity issue of the odd lot market, the execution price of odd lot share(s) will be lower than the prevailing board lot market price. In addition, we may only get quote(s) and execute the odd lot trade(s) for you through one of the few brokers as may be designated by us from time to time, while we will act in your best interests with relevant best execution factors taken into account in relation to your order(s).

Stop Loss Order is a sale instruction to preset the selling price range, i.e. Stop Loss Price and Lowest Selling Price, for specific securities in your portfolio. Once the current nominal price of the securities hits or lower than your pre-defined Stop Loss Price, your sale order will be placed to market at the prevailing market price(i.e. sale order is triggered). The Bank will try its best to process your order but it may NOT be performed due to fluctuation in stock price, insufficient market liquidity, system failure and any event beyond the control of the Bank. The order may be fully executed, partially executed or even unexecuted. The executed price may also be BETTER THAN, EQUAL TO OR WORSE THAN your specified Stop Loss Price but not lower than your Lowest Selling Price. Once the Stop Loss Order is triggered, regardless of the final execution result at the end of the trading day, the order will be lapsed and cancelled and will not be carried forward to next trading day.

The acceptance range for Stop Loss Price is defined within 11 spreads and 50 spreads (The Bank reserves the right to change the acceptance range for Stop Loss Price without notice) away from current Nominal Price but it must not be lower than HKD0.010.01 hong kong dollar. The Lowest Selling Price can be Lower Than or Equal To the Stop Loss Price but it cannot be lower than HKD0.010.01 hong kong dollar. Based on the above arrangement, we do not accept any Stop Loss Order if the current nominal price of such stock is lower than HKD0.020.02 hong kong dollar.

The Bank reserves the right to change the acceptance range for Stop Loss Price without notice.

If the order is not executed even at the Lowest Selling Price, such Stop Loss Order will be treated as a Normal Limit Order at the Lowest Selling Price and will be placed to the market for queuing. Once the Stop Loss Order is triggered, regardless of the final execution result at the end of the trading day, the order will be lapsed and cancelled and will not be carried forward to next trading day.

Please refer to the Diagram as below:

To amend Stop Loss Order which is pending for execution, please cancel the order first . Upon the cancellation is duly handled, then place a new order again. Only the outstanding Stop Loss Order can be cancelled.

Yes. Our securities trading system will check the stock price of the Stop Loss Order continuously and transmit them to OTP-C trading system during continuous trading session in straight-through mode in ascending order input time. However, if the relevant stock has NO BID, such Stop Loss Order will be handled manually.

No. The Stop Loss Order is not applicable to pre-opening session. But Final Indicative Equilibrium Price (IEP) will be treated as the Nominal Price when market open, therefore the Final IEP (if any), will be used to check against the Stop Loss Price. In case, the Final IEP falls at or below your Stop Loss Price, the Stop Loss Order will be placed to market after the morning trading session starts.

Yes. You can choose an expiry date for your Stop Loss Order from the list of days provided. Please note that once your Stop Loss Order is triggered regardless of the final execution result, the order will be lapsed and cancelled and will NOT be carried forward to next trading day.

If your Stop Loss Order is placed through our e-Banking, subject to the final execution result, you will receive one of our following e-mail notification: (i) Order Fully Executed indicates the Stop Loss Order is fully executed. (ii) Partially Executed / Rest Expired indicates the Stop Loss Order, no matter it is a multiple day order or not, is partially executed, the remaining quantity is cancelled and will not be carried forward to next trading day. (iii) Order Unexecuted indicates the Stop Loss Order, no matter it is a multiple day order or not, is unexecuted and cancelled and will not be carried forward to next trading day.

If you are using our Instant Order Conformation Service, subject to the final execution result, you will receive our following SMS message: (i) HS:SOLD<QUANTITY>SHARES<STOCK CODE>,AT<PRICE>,TOT,SOLD<QUANTITY>SHARES,O/S 0 SHARES, <REFERENCE NUMBER> indicates the Stop Loss Order is fully executed. (ii) HS:SOLD<QUANTITY>SHARES<STOCK CODE>,AT<PRICE>,TOT,SOLD<QUANTITY>SHARES,UNEXE AND CANCEL<QUANTITY>SHARES, <REFERENCE NUMBER> indicates the Stop Loss Order, no matter it is a multiple day order or not, is partially executed, the remaining quantity is cancelled and will not be carried forward to next trading day. (iii) HS:UNEXE,SELL<QUANTITY>SHARES<STOCK CODE>,ORDER,CANCELLED, <REFERENCE NUMBER> indicates the Stop Loss Order, no matter it is a multiple day order or not, is unexecuted and cancelled and will not be carried forward to next trading day. With effect from 27 June 2016, integrated account securities customer^{1Footnote remark 1} who already registered Hang Seng Personal e-Banking and with a valid mobile phone number (either a Hong Kong or overseas mobile number) provided to the Bank, the Bank will notify you the execution result of your securities orders placed via the Bank by SMS.

You can also check your Stop Loss Order status via the following channels:

Our securities trading system will check the stock price of the Stop Loss Order continuously and transmit them to OTP-C trading system during continuous trading session in straight-through mode in ascending order input time. However, if the relevant stock has NO BID, such Stop Loss Order will be handled manually.

No. Only board lot quantity will be accepted.

HKExH K E x system rejects the order price of at-auction limit which deviates 9 times or more from the previous closing price or the nominal price or final IEP(as the case may be), if available. In this case, the Bank will not process your order and your order will become unexecuted.

For stocks with previous closing price, during Order Input Period, the upper/lower price will be ±15% of previous closing price. During No Cancellation Period and Random Matching Period, the upper price for buy is the highest bid at 9:15 or the lowest ask at 9:15 (whichever is higher) while the lower price for buy is -15% of previous closing price. The lower price for sell is the lowest ask at 9:15 or the highest bid at 9:15 (whichever is lower) while the upper price for sell is +15% of prevoius closing price.

For stocks without previous closing price (e.g. IPO stocks or stocks resuming from trading suspension), during Order Input Period, there will be no upper/lower price limit (but the existing 9-times price limit will also applicable to POS). During No Cancellation Period and Random Matching Period, the upper price for buy is the highest bid at 9:15 or the lowest ask at 9:15 (whichever is higher) while there is no lower price limit. The lower price for sell is the lowest ask at 9:15 or the highest bid at 9:15 (whichever is lower) while there is no upper price limit.

HKEXH K E x has imposed a price limit on At-auction Limit Order during Closing Auction Session. During Order Input Period, the upper/lower price will be ±5% of the Reference Price. During No Cancellation Period and Random Closing Period, the upper/lower price will be the highest bid price and lowest ask price. Please check the status of your instruction via the "Order Status" page. You can place another new at-auction limit order if you need to. The Bank reserves the right to amend the above operation from time to time without prior notice.

As the Pre-opening Session is closed, our system will not place the at-auction limit orders to the market. You can cancel the at-auction limit order and re-capture a new order.

During the Pre-opening Session, if the stock status is suspended, HKExH K E x will cancel all at-auction limit orders placed in the market at 09:22 am. So your order status will be changed to unexecuted. If you still want to trade this stock after its trading is resumed on that day, you can re-capture a new order.

The following types of orders on stocks eligible for pre-opening session will be processed by the Bank in the pre-opening session:

If your order is not queuing in OTP-C trading system, the Bank will, at its best effort, update the order status from "Pending Dealing" to "Suspended. Resume on Next Trade Day" (not yet expired orders) or "Unexecuted" or "Partial Executed" (expired orders) when the continuous trading session ends.

If you are not sure whether your order has been carried forward to the closing auction session, you can call our securities trading hotline 2532 38382 5 3 2 3 8 3 8 or consider canceling it and placing a new At-auction Order or At-auction Limit Order if you intend to trade in the closing auction session.

No. Please note the Bank will only accept today expired At-Auction Limit order before market close and the Bank will accept next trade day expired At-Auction Limit order after market close. Only today expired At-Auction Market order is accepted.

No. Odd lot orders will not be accepted in the pre-opening session and closing auction session. In case of an order with both board and odd lots is carried forward to the closing auction session, once the board lot is executed in the closing auction session, the remaining odd lot will be cancelled for the order that is expired on the same day or will be processed in the next continuous trading session for multiple-day order.

With effect from 11-May-2020, the VCM for the securities market will cover all Hang Seng Composite LargeCap, MidCap, SmallCap Indexes (HSCI) constituent stocks and is applicable to board lot order input during the Continuous Trading Session from 9:45am -to 12:00 noon^{1Footnote remark 1} and from 1:15 pm -to 3:45pm. The VCM is triggered for the constituent stocks price of HSCI LargeCap ±10%, HSCI MidCap ±15%, HSCI SmallCap ±20% away from the last traded price 5-minute ago (reference price); and a 5-minute cooling-off period will start. During the 5-minute cooling-off period, the VCM security can continue trading but will only be allowed to trade within a fixed price band (HSCI LargeCap ±10%, HSCI MidCap ±15%, HSCI SmallCap ±20% from the reference price), i.e. buy order at or below upper price limit and sell order at or above lower price limit. In addition, OTP-C will cancel the then existing high price buy orders (i.e. those with buy price > upper price limit) and the then existing low price sell orders (i.e. those with sell price < lower price limit) that queued in the order queue before start of the cooling-off period. For more details of VCM, please visit HKEXH K E x website.

Please note that an order may NOT be performed due to order price outside the permissible price band during the cooling-off period, fluctuation in stock price, insufficient market liquidity etc.

For an order that cannot be performed during the cooling-off period, the order status may change from 'Pending Dealing' to: