The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has granted stablecoin issuer licenses to HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial, a joint venture led by Standard Chartered that includes Animoca Brands. This move marks the first batch of approvals under the Stablecoins Ordinance, which became effective in August 2025. According to HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue, the authority looks forward to the licensed issuers commencing operations as planned, exploring growth opportunities while effectively managing 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 development of digital assets in Hong Kong.
The HKMA received 36 applications and had indicated that the initial round of approvals would be limited, with a focus on risk management, reserve quality, and anti-money-laundering controls. By licensing note-issuing banks first, the decision appears to be deliberate, given that HSBC and Standard Chartered are among the three commercial banks authorized to print Hong Kong dollar banknotes.
This system dates back to 1846, when private banks began issuing currency backed by silver deposits. Today, each note-issuing bank deposits U.S.
dollars with the government's Exchange Fund and receives Certificates of Indebtedness in return, against which it prints 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 come with 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 been identity-verified.
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. This makes them structurally different from freely transferable tokens like USDT or USDC.
The bank-led stablecoin model 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, 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.