The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has announced the initial Hong Kong stablecoin issuers will be Anchorpoint Financial and HSBC. Anchorpoint Financial is a joint venture created by Standard Chartered together with Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) and web3 firm Animoca Brands. Both Standard Chartered and HSBC are two of the three institutions that print Hong Kong’s bank notes.
The selection of two institutions comes from 36 applications, following 77 firms expressing an interest in becoming the first Hong Kong stablecoin issuers. Many Chinese mainland linked firms also signaled plans to apply, including Ant and JD, whose subsidiary was one of three Hong Kong stablecoin sandbox participants. Such was the frenzy of interest, that the Chinese authorities stepped in to temper the enthusiasm, banning onshore stablecoins. HKMA CEO Eddie Yue said future issuer applications will be considered but “the overall number will remain very limited.”
The first stablecoins will be HKD-referenced and will launch in the mid to second half of this year. Approved use cases include cross border payments and usage for the settlement of tokenized asset transactions. Local payments and programmable applications are also envisioned.
Banks were likely to be first stablecoin issuers
A key factor in the selection process is Hong Kong’s stance towards money laundering, which likely requires the identification of all holders at this initial stage. When the HKMA formulated rules for issuers it showed an awareness that blockchain analytics and other tools can be used for anti money laundering but said that “Unless a licensee can demonstrate to the HKMA’s satisfaction that these risk mitigating measures are effective in preventing and combating ML/TF and other crimes, the identity of each individual stablecoin holder should be verified.”
This stance would favor banks, although the HKMA has hinted that it sees this as a stepping stone. In other words, this limitation is likely to be relaxed over time. Initially Hong Kong only approved two crypto exchanges and limited retail access, but over time many of the restrictions were relaxed. Another aspect that worked in their favor is the participation of the two banks in HKMA’s CBDC and tokenized deposit pilots.
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Hong Kong flexes Basel rules for stablecoins
International prudential rules for banks, the Basel rules, currently limit bank engagement with stablecoins and permissionless blockchains by imposing prohibitive capital requirements. They treat any assets on permissionless blockchains as carrying the same risks as cryptocurrencies. Hong Kong is one of the few jurisdictions to adopt the Basel crypto rules on 1 January 2026. However, its implementation provides a carveout for authorized Hong Kong stablecoins.
In announcing the issuers, HKMA CEO Eddie Yue said the aim was to balance innovation with risks and user protection to create a “sustainable stablecoin ecosystem.” He added, “We hope their promotion of regulated stablecoins will address pain points in financial and economic activities…and support the healthy development of digital assets in Hong Kong.”
In an insights post, Mr Yue also highlighted the HKMA’s engagement in Financial Stability Board discussions about multi jurisdiction stablecoins, a topic that the EU has been very vocal about.
Other Hong Kong stablecoin rules
While Hong Kong is initially stricter than other jurisdictions on holder identification, it is more relaxed in other respects. Stablecoin reserve rules permit bank deposits of up to 90 days maturity and government or central bank securities of less than one year, along with overnight repos and money market funds investing in the same assets. The framework is somewhat more relaxed than comparable regimes in Singapore and the US, which typically cap securities maturity at 90 days. Hong Kong also allows issuers to conduct other approved business activities, subject to HKMA approval. As in the US and EU, stablecoin issuers cannot pay interest to holders, though marketing incentives are expressly permitted.
