In a landmark move, Hong Kong has awarded its inaugural stablecoin issuer licenses to HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial, a joint venture led by Standard Chartered and including Animoca Brands, as announced on Friday. This development follows the implementation of the Stablecoins Ordinance in August 2025.
According to Eddie Yue, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the regulator is looking forward to the licensed issuers commencing operations in line with their plans, while effectively managing associated risks. Yue expressed hopes that the promotion of regulated stablecoins will address existing pain points in financial and economic activities, create value for both individuals and businesses, and support the healthy growth of digital assets in Hong Kong. The HKMA evaluated 36 applications and, as previously indicated, limited the initial round of approvals. Financial Secretary Paul Chan had mentioned in his February budget address that only a small number of licenses would be granted, with the regulator prioritizing risk management, reserve quality, and anti-money-laundering controls.
The decision to license note-issuing banks first appears to be a deliberate move, given that HSBC and Standard Chartered are two of the three commercial banks authorized to print Hong Kong dollar banknotes, a system dating back to 1846. Today, these note-issuing banks deposit U.S.
dollars with the government's Exchange Fund at a fixed rate and receive Certificates of Indebtedness in return, which they use to print banknotes. In a December 2023 blog post, Yue drew parallels between pre-1935 banknotes issued by commercial banks in exchange for deposited silver and stablecoins, which function as their blockchain-based equivalent. The licenses are subject to one of the world's strictest Know Your Customer (KYC) frameworks for digital money, requiring licensed stablecoins to be transferred only to wallets whose owners have undergone identity verification.
The travel rule applies to transfers exceeding HK$8,000 (~$1,000). In practice, this means that HKD stablecoins will likely embed compliance checks into their smart contracts, restricting transfers to wallets listed in an on-chain white list, making them structurally different from freely transferable tokens like USDT or USDC. The bank-led stablecoin model also reflects the HKMA's decision to deprioritize its central bank digital currency for retail use, following an 11-group pilot program that found the retail case to be weak. Instead, stablecoins have become a key focus area, with Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters suggesting that Hong Kong's push into stablecoins and tokenized deposits could lay the foundation for a new era of digital trade settlement.
Whether the market agrees remains to be seen, given that stablecoins are a roughly $310 billion asset class dominated by USD-denominated tokens. Hong Kong is betting that regulated, bank-issued HKD stablecoins can carve out a role in regional trade settlement, issued by the same institutions, under the same constraints, on new rails. The question is whether a non-dollar stablecoin, however tightly regulated, can build the necessary network effects to compete.