Hong Kong's Stablecoins Are Live. Who Will Use Them?

Hong Kong's stablecoin regime has moved from legislation to the market. On 23 October 2026, HSBC launched HSBC RedCoin, its first Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, inside PayMe — putting a bank-issued stablecoin within reach of more than 3.3 million users. Two months earlier, Anchorpoint Financial, the joint venture of Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), HKT and Animoca Brands, had already minted the city's first regulated Hong Kong dollar token, HKDAP.

By that measure, the regime is working: two licensed issuers, two live products, and no visible incidents. The more interesting question is the one that licensing cannot answer. Hong Kong already pays instantly, at home and increasingly across the border. Who, then, actually needs a tokenized Hong Kong dollar?

Two licences out of 36 applications

By the September 2025 deadline, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority had received 36 applications under the new Stablecoins Ordinance. On 10 April 2026, it granted just two licences: to The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and to Anchorpoint Financial. HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue called it "an important milestone for the development of digital assets in Hong Kong."

The HKMA did not publish the list of applicants, but the outcome is telling. Bank of China (Hong Kong) had announced that it would apply. Of the three participants in the HKMA's 2024 stablecoin sandbox, only the Standard Chartered consortium made the first cut; JD CoinLink and RD InnoTech did not. According to the HKMA, the two licensees best demonstrated their ability to manage risks, together with credible use cases and development plans. It is hard to overlook that HSBC and Standard Chartered are also two of Hong Kong's three note-issuing banks — a track record in reserve management that no fintech can match. The third note-issuing bank, Bank of China (Hong Kong), is still waiting.

A second licensing round is not imminent. In May, Eddie Yue said the HKMA would first observe how the two stablecoins perform and compare actual risks with its expectations before considering new applications, and that approvals would remain "very limited". No date has been given.

Two different bets

The two issuers have chosen opposite starting points. Anchorpoint went first, opening beta access to HKDAP ("HKD At Par") on 12 August for institutions and professional investors, with HashKey Exchange and OSL among its distributors. Every HKDAP in circulation is backed by high-quality liquid reserves held in a segregated trust, with Standard Chartered Trustee (Hong Kong) as trustee; retail access could follow as early as the end of 2026.

HSBC took the retail route from day one. RedCoin (RCHKD) lives in a stablecoin wallet inside PayMe, where users can send it to friends and pay at more than 100,000 merchants. Later this year, HSBC plans to add the wallet to its Hong Kong mobile banking app and let customers subscribe to tokenized funds with it, starting with a new share class of its long-running Hong Kong dollar money market fund. Anchorpoint is building from institutions and exchanges outwards; HSBC is building on an existing consumer base. Both approaches are plausible — and both will be tested against the same demand question.

Where are the mainland players?

They are not on the register, and that is unlikely to change soon. In October 2025, the Financial Times reported that the People's Bank of China and the Cyberspace Administration of China had told Ant Group and JD.com to suspend their Hong Kong stablecoin plans. In February 2026, a notice by the PBOC and seven other agencies barred the offshore issuance of renminbi-linked stablecoins without approval, including through mainland firms' offshore entities. A Hong Kong licence, in other words, is no pass into the mainland. For mainland banks and platforms, Beijing sets the pace.

Could an offshore renminbi stablecoin follow?

Legally, nothing in the Stablecoins Ordinance restricts licensees to the Hong Kong dollar, and Eddie Yue has indicated that issuers may reference additional fiat currencies in future. In practice, the February notice makes Beijing's approval the precondition.

The demand is real. In September 2025, the Hong Kong FinTech AnchorX launched AxCNH, a token pegged to the offshore yuan and aimed at cross-border trade settlement — under a licence from the Astana Financial Services Authority in Kazakhstan, not from Hong Kong. The HKMA was quick to clarify that no offshore yuan stablecoin had been approved in Hong Kong. Our reading: a CNH stablecoin in Hong Kong is conceivable, but only bank-issued, sanctioned by Beijing, and most likely as a limited pilot for trade settlement.

So who will use them?

Hong Kong is a difficult market for any new payment instrument. The Faster Payment System settles instantly, around the clock. Since June 2025, Payment Connect has linked it to the mainland's IBPS for small-value cross-border transfers of up to HK$10,000 per day, and FPS also connects to Thailand's PromptPay. Mobile wallets such as PayMe, AlipayHK and WeChat Pay HK are ubiquitous. Paying for lunch with a stablecoin solves no problem a Hong Kong consumer actually has.

The more likely early users are elsewhere:

• Investors in tokenized assets. A stablecoin is the natural cash leg for buying tokenized funds and bonds, settling instantly instead of over several days. HSBC's tokenized money market fund share class will be the first real test.
• Corporate treasuries. Round-the-clock settlement, programmable and conditional payments, and supply-chain finance are all use cases the HKMA itself has named.
• Digital asset traders. Through licensed exchanges such as HashKey and OSL, a regulated Hong Kong dollar token offers an alternative to offshore US dollar stablecoins.
• Cross-border businesses — eventually. The HKMA requires foreign regulatory approval for cross-border use, and its new workstream with Bank Negara Malaysia on cross-border stablecoin use cases shows where this is heading.

Mass retail adoption is likely to come last, if at all. And stablecoins are not the only contender for the institutional business: bank-issued tokenized deposits, piloted under the HKMA's EnsembleTX programme, are competing for precisely the same use cases.

What it means for Hong Kong's FinTech scene

Issuance is, for now, effectively reserved for banks and bank-led consortia. The opportunities for FinTechs sit one layer up: distribution through exchanges and wallets; compliance services, since the HKMA expects blockchain analytics and robust identity checks; custody; and tokenization platforms that need a regulated cash leg. For startups hoping to issue a coin of their own, the message is equally clear — partner with a licensee, or look to another jurisdiction. Some already have.

What to watch

Three signals will show whether Hong Kong's stablecoins find real demand: the retail launch of HKDAP, planned for as early as the end of 2026; the first approved cross-border use case; and whether the HKMA reopens licensing in 2027. Hong Kong FinTech Week in early November will give a first indication of how much of this is already in motion.

For more on the market, see our Hong Kong FinTech hub and our guide to FinTech licensing in Hong Kong. Planning to enter Hong Kong's digital-asset market? Talk to us.