Protection Group’s Founder and CEO, Simon Fung, and Founder and COO, Kristina Chan, on their company’s near-perfect record of helping Chinese elite professionals immigrate to Hong Kong and abroad.
Protection Group Holdings Limited was established in 2011 in Hong Kong. Can you tell us more about your corporate culture and mission statement?
Kristina Chan: Protection Group was originally started to provide clients with an array of distinguished immigration and investment management services. Our speciality, of course, lies in immigration expertise, where we help wealthy mainland professionals achieve their aim of moving to Hong Kong on a permanent basis. This could be as straightforward as arranging the applications, but we also have expertise in matching individuals with sought-after skills to local companies in need of those specific talents – it’s a speciality that definitely sets us apart from our competitors and makes us a market leader.
What’s more, we also aid in other areas related to such moves, ranging from investment advising and real estate guidance to arranging overseas education options for our clients’ families. Our goal is to provide each customer with a tailor-made, thoughtful and comprehensive immigration solution that suits their unique situations and expectations. Speaking to our team culture, it boils down to three things – integrity, value creation and teamwork.
Your company also established the Greater Bay Area Institute of Enterprise Professionals in 2020. What was the impetus for that?
Simon Fung: The Greater Bay Area Institute (GBAI) was created with the goal of educating and cultivating enterprise professionals whose skills could complement the development of China’s Greater Bay Area in the coming years. It provides consultancy courses on such subjects as immigration and asset allocation, overseas real estate, overseas education and advancement, and a broad array of other business- and finance-related courses. For Protection Group, it also allows us to foster talented individuals that can complement our task force to provide Grade-A services to our clients. No other immigration company has had the passion, institutional strength and vision to set up an education institute that cultivates and disseminates knowledge for the betterment of our entire industry. Through GBAI, we have set a new benchmark as a leading immigration company.
What do you feel is the current trend for skilled mainland professionals migrating to Hong Kong?
SF: I think Hong Kong is a very attractive option for these elite professionals for several reasons. Not only is it a vibrant city in its own right with many opportunities available, but it also serves as a stepping stone to the broader world too. So, there’s lots of interest in coming and living here. That attraction has only grown after the government dropped the investment requirements to make that move.
Previously, potential candidates would need to invest at least HK$10 million in order to be considered, but that policy stopped in January 2015. Since then, the government has eschewed the need for financial investment in favour of seeking out extremely highly-qualified mainlanders whose expertise can contribute greatly to the local economy and businesses. This is facilitated by its Admission Scheme for Mainland Talents and Professionals (ASMTP, 輸入內地人才計劃), and it is something that is a core business focus for Protection Group. Helping mainland graduates of local higher education institutions who wish to remain here to work through the Immigration Arrangement for Non-local Graduates (IANG, 非本地畢業生留港計劃) scheme is another strong point for our company, though we also bring in applicants via the Quality Mainland Admission Scheme (QMAS, 香港優才入境計劃) as well.
Over the years, Protection Group has built a strong following of customers and now boasts an approval rate of almost 100% for helping mainlanders immigrate to Hong Kong. What is the reason behind this success?
KC: I think the biggest factor of our success is our team of elite staff. Protection Group boasts a number of former high-rank HK government immigration officers among its ranks. Thanks to their knowledge of the system and years of experience, we’ve successfully applied for more than 1,500 cases of Hong Kong migration. Even for cases where other companies have failed, we have been able to appeal, and in those instances, we’ve reached an approval rate of over 90%. It’s safe to say that we are the leading service provider in this sphere.
Aside from immigration expertise, what other services can Protection Group offer to clients?
KC: As I mentioned before, our team offers many services that are connected to immigration. For example, we can provide real estate advising to help our clients find homes in their selected destination, whether to rent or to buy. We have cooperative relationships with an array of developers such as One Heritage in UK, Westcorp in Canada, FGI Futuro Grupo Imobiliaria and Delsk in Portugal, in addition to local property agents such as Centaline, Midland, Ricacorp and Century 21. Through our network, we’re able to find solutions in a more timely, efficient manner.
Beyond that, we also cater to customers who are seeking higher education overseas. In fact, through our services, we’ve sent over 200 students overseas in the last decade. The majority of these students come to Hong Kong to attain higher education – Bachelor’s, Master’s or Doctorate degrees – then want to remain here to work afterwards, which is facilitated by the government’s IANG scheme. This is another core business strength for Protection Group, because we have a high success rate of helping such applicants through the process of gaining right of abode here.
Do you have any upcoming projects on the horizon?
SF: On the education front, we want to start offering tours for clients looking for universities or boarding schools for their children. So in the near future, we’d like to make a strong push to shore up our expertise in surrounding services that relate to immigration. In terms of our core immigration services, we already have quite an expansive network, but we hope to continue building connections in hot destinations such as Singapore, Australia, Canada, the EU and so forth. Also, Protection Group is planning to make significant investments in Turkey, Slovenia and New Zealand; countries with huge potential growth in this sector. It’s an exciting move, and through it, we hope to explore new opportunities such as to begin providing immigration projects from those countries.
Finally, can you sum up why Protection Group makes immigration so easy for its clients?
KC: It’s our core precept; our company slogan is ‘Immigration made simple’. We want to make the experience as hassle-free and timely as possible, and to make that happen, we have a highly specialised structure. Our team comprises nearly 50 staff, who are divided into very specific, targeted departments like Client Service, Consultancy (Sales), Processing/Operation, R&D, Legal & Compliance and so forth. This gives us great versatility and specialisation, with each team focusing solely on their expertise for the projects and clients at hand.
With many competitor companies, each staff will handle the entire process single-handedly, which sometimes causes applications to be rejected because something was missing or mishandled. Our specialised department structure facilitates highly efficient communication, creativity and precision to deliver results to clients whatever their needs may be while simultaneously driving up our success rate. Our responsibility is to make this complex process as painless as possible by using our knowledge and networks to creating the perfect custom-made solution for each customer.
Thank you.