News, data and analysis on tokenized assets, market design and digital economic systems.
The Stablecoins Ordinance has been in force since August 2025, and in April 2026 the HKMA granted the first two issuer licences: to an Anchorpoint joint venture of Standard Chartered, Animoca and HKT, and to HSBC.
The Stablecoins Ordinance took effect on August 1, 2025, requiring an HKMA licence to issue fiat-referenced stablecoins in Hong Kong or to issue Hong Kong dollar-referenced stablecoins anywhere, with full high-quality liquid reserve backing, redemption at par and minimum paid-up capital of HK$25 million. The HKMA granted the first two licences on April 10, 2026, to Anchorpoint Financial Limited (a joint venture of Standard Chartered, Animoca Brands and HKT) and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, indicating that licensees would launch products in the following months. The SFC separately licenses virtual asset trading platforms; its published list showed 13 licensed platforms when last updated on May 29, 2026, and its ASPIRe roadmap sets out further work on custody, derivatives and market access. The HKMA opened a new phase of Project Ensemble on November 13, 2025, extending tokenized deposit and settlement testing, while mainland restrictions announced in February 2026 constrained offshore renminbi-referenced stablecoin plans.
| Framework | Status | Date | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stablecoins Ordinance (Cap. 656) | In force | 1 August 2025 | HKMA licensing of fiat-referenced stablecoin issuers: full reserve backing in high-quality liquid assets held on trust, par redemption, HK$25 million minimum paid-up capital, restrictions on offering to retail investors other than through licensed distributors. |
| First HKMA stablecoin issuer licences | In force | 10 April 2026 | Granted to Anchorpoint Financial Limited (Standard Chartered, Animoca Brands, HKT joint venture) and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited. |
| Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance: virtual asset trading platform licensing | In force | 1 June 2023 | SFC licensing regime for centralised virtual asset trading platforms, including retail access subject to suitability and token due diligence. |
| SFC list of licensed virtual asset trading platforms | In force | 29 May 2026 | 13 licensed platforms as at the list's last update: OSL, HashKey, HKVAX, HKbitEX, Accumulus, DFX Labs, EX.IO, PantherTrade, YAX, Bullish HK, BGE, VDX, and Bixin/NewBX. |
| SFC ASPIRe regulatory roadmap for digital assets | Guidance | 19 February 2025 | Twelve initiatives across access, safeguards, products, infrastructure and relationships, including custody standards and derivatives trading. |
| HKMA Project Ensemble wholesale tokenized settlement | In force | 13 November 2025 | New phase announced November 13, 2025 extending testing of tokenized deposits and real-world asset settlement with commercial banks and platforms. |
| SFC and HKMA joint circular on distribution of tokenised securities | Guidance | 2 November 2023 | Confirms that tokenised securities remain subject to the existing securities regime, with additional expectations on ownership records and settlement. |
| Government tokenised green bond issuances | In force | 7 February 2024 | HK$6 billion multi-currency digitally native green bond issued February 2024, following the HK$800 million pilot in February 2023. |
Every development we have evidenced under Hong Kong, newest first.
The Stablecoins Ordinance came into operation, bringing stablecoin issuance in Hong Kong under a licensing regime administered by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. The Ordinance had been gazetted on 30 May 2025 and the commencement notice fixing the 1 August date was gazetted on 6 June 2025, with transitional provisions allowing professional investors to receive specified stablecoins from unlicensed issuers under defined conditions.
The Hong Kong government published a second policy statement on digital assets structured around four workstreams it labelled LEAP: legal and regulatory streamlining, expanding tokenised products, advancing use cases and people and partnership development. It committed to regularising issuance of tokenised government bonds, clarifying the stamp duty treatment of tokenised exchange traded funds, and bringing the stablecoin issuer licensing regime into effect on 1 August 2025.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing welcomed the listing of Asia's first spot virtual asset exchange-traded funds, covering bitcoin and ether. The listings followed the Securities and Futures Commission's circular of 22 December 2023 setting conditions for such products.
The Hong Kong SAR government settled an HK$800m tokenised green bond with a 365-day tenor, priced the previous day at 4.05%, on Goldman Sachs's GS DAP private blockchain platform. The HKMA's Central Moneymarkets Unit acted as clearing and settlement system, with HSBC as trustee and custodian alongside Bank of China (Hong Kong).
The Digital Currency Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates joined the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Bank of Thailand in a project hosted by the BIS Innovation Hub Centre in Hong Kong to build a prototype for cross-border foreign exchange payments on distributed ledger technology. The work, which grew out of Inthanon-LionRock, targeted payment-versus-payment settlement across jurisdictions and later became known as mBridge.
The Securities and Futures Commission published a position paper allowing centralised virtual asset trading platforms in Hong Kong that trade at least one security token to be licensed, on terms comparable to those for securities brokers covering custody, market surveillance, know-your-client, anti-money-laundering and cybersecurity. Licensed platforms could serve professional investors only, and the SFC acknowledged that platforms trading no security tokens fell outside its jurisdiction.
Bank of China settled the two largest transactions recorded on mBridge, the multi-central-bank digital currency platform, in June and July 2026. A CNY 11.3bn payment through its…
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority granted its first stablecoin issuer licences on 10 April 2026 to HSBC and to Anchorpoint Financial, a joint venture led by Standard Chartered with…
What issued, what settled, what the supervisors changed, with the numbers behind it and a note on what the numbers do not show. One email, Thursday mornings.
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