Hong Kong awards first stablecoin licenses to HSBC, Standard Chartered-led group

Hong Kong granted its first two stablecoin issuer licenses to HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial, a Standard Chartered-led consortium that includes Animoca Brands on Friday.

The approvals by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the territory’s central bank, mark the first batch under the Stablecoins Ordinance, which took effect in August 2025.

“We look forward to the issuers launching business according to their plans, exploring growth opportunities while properly managing risks,” HKMA chief executive Eddie Yue said in an announcement on Friday.

“We hope their promotion of regulated stablecoins will address pain points in financial and economic activities, create values for both individuals and businesses, and support the healthy development of digital assets in Hong Kong.”

The HKMA assessed 36 applications and had signaled that the initial round would be limited. Financial Secretary Paul Chan said in his February budget address that only “a small number” 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 deliberate. HSBC and Standard Chartered are two of only three commercial banks authorized to print Hong Kong dollar banknotes, a system that dates to 1846, when private banks began issuing currency backed by silver deposits in the absence of a colonial central bank.

Today, each note-issuing bank deposits U.S. dollars with the government’s Exchange Fund at the fixed rate of HK$7.80 per dollar and receives Certificates of Indebtedness in return, against which it prints banknotes.

Yue drew the parallel in a December 2023 blog post.

Pre-1935 banknotes issued by commercial banks in exchange for deposited silver were a form of “private money,” Yue wrote, and stablecoins function as their blockchain-based equivalent — tokens with stable value that can serve as a medium of exchange on-chain.

A strict identity regime

The licenses come with one of the world’s strictest KYC frameworks for digital money.

Under the HKMA’s AML guidelines, licensed stablecoins can only be transferred to wallets whose owners have been identity-verified. The travel rule applies to transfers above HK$8,000 (~$1,000).

In practice, this means HKD stablecoins will likely embed compliance checks into their smart contracts, restricting transfers to wallets listed in an on-chain white list. That makes them structurally different from freely transferable tokens like USDT or USDC.

A HKD CBDC takes a back seat

The bank-led stablecoin model also reflects the HKMA’s decision to deprioritize its central bank digital currency for retail use, as an 11-group pilot program completed in October found the retail case was weak.

CBDCs have historically been a big theme at Hong Kong Fintech Week. Last year, there was barely a mention. Instead, stablecoins were the hot topic.

Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters said at the time Hong Kong’s push into stablecoins and tokenized deposits could “lay the foundation for a new era of digital trade settlement,” positioning them as a new medium for cross-border commerce.

Whether the market agrees remains to be seen.

Stablecoins are a roughly $310 billion asset class, and USD-denominated tokens dominate nearly all of it.

Data from CoinGecko shows that the largest stablecoins by market cap are dollar-pegged, with no euro-or yen-pegged tokens breaking into the top ranks.

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 network effects needed to compete.