In a historic move, Hong Kong has issued its first two licenses for stablecoin issuers to HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial, a joint venture led by Standard Chartered that includes Animoca Brands, as announced on Friday. This decision marks the first batch of approvals under the Stablecoins Ordinance, which became effective in August 2025.
According to Eddie Yue, the chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the regulator is looking forward to the licensed issuers launching their businesses, exploring growth opportunities while managing risks effectively. The HKMA chief executive expressed hopes that the promotion of regulated stablecoins will address 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 licensing decision follows the assessment of 36 applications, with the regulator signaling that the initial round would be limited. Financial Secretary Paul Chan had indicated in his February budget address that only a small number of licenses would be approved, with the regulator prioritizing risk management, reserve quality, and anti-money-laundering controls.
The decision to license the city's note-issuing banks first appears to be a deliberate move, given that HSBC and Standard Chartered are two of only three commercial banks authorized to print Hong Kong dollar banknotes. The note-issuing banks deposit U.S.
dollars with the government's Exchange Fund at a fixed rate and receive Certificates of Indebtedness in return, against which they 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 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.
The travel rule applies to transfers above HK$8,000. 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.
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 was 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, but the question is whether a non-dollar stablecoin can build the necessary network effects to compete.