Today HSBC announced the private placement of its first digitally native structured product, with USD denominated notes issued out of Hong Kong. Marketnode, the Asia Pacific digital market infrastructure operator, acted as the tokenization agent, with the notes issued directly on blockchain. It also acted as the digital paying agent, managing payment flows between issuer and investor.
HSBC is more than a client of Marketnode. It led the firm’s Series A in May 2024 and holds a board seat. Marketnode started life as a joint venture between SGX Group and Temasek, with Euroclear investing in late 2024.
Structured products are a mainstay of Asian wealth portfolios, and HSBC is one of the region’s largest issuers. “We see clear potential for tokenisation to improve the efficiency of issuance, settlement and servicing, while creating a more scalable foundation for future product innovation,” said Patrick Boumalham, Head of Institutional Sales, Asia, at HSBC.
The efficiency argument is stronger for structured products than for many asset classes. Popular Asian products such as autocallables and equity linked notes have busy lifecycles, with observation dates, coupon triggers and early redemption events that today are tracked and reconciled separately by the issuer, paying agents and distributors. A digitally native note makes the token the single record that all of them work from.
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