Hong Kong could grant its first batch of stablecoin issuer licences within two weeks, according to sources cited by the South China Morning Post on March 12. HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial, a joint venture between Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), Animoca Brands, and telecoms group HKT, are expected to be among the initial recipients. The approvals would mark the first licences issued under the city's Stablecoins Ordinance, which came into force on August 1, 2025. HSBC's intended currency peg has not been publicly confirmed. Neither bank commented on the report.

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A Competitive Field, Quickly Narrowed

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority received 36 formal applications for stablecoin issuer licences after the ordinance took effect. Initial approvals are expected to cover just three to five applicants. That shortlist is itself a contraction: the process started with 77 expressions of interest before stringent capital requirements and regulatory intervention from Beijing combined to thin the field considerably.

HKMA chief executive Eddie Yue signalled as much earlier this year. The initial number of licences "will certainly not be large," he said, describing the regulator's preference for careful market observation over rapid scale-up.

Beyond HSBC and Anchorpoint, RD InnoTech (backed by former HKMA chief executive Norman Chan's firm, RD Technologies, developing a token called HKDR whose currency peg has not been explicitly confirmed in public disclosures) and HashKey Group are also named as likely early recipients.

JD.com's Hong Kong subsidiary, Jingdong Coinlink Technology, was an original sandbox participant but is now considered unlikely to receive a licence. Beijing's intervention played a decisive role: in December 2025, the People's Bank of China declared that stablecoins cannot legally settle payments in China, and eight government agencies jointly prohibited the issuance of offshore yuan-pegged stablecoins. The effect was immediate. Ant Group's CEO publicly withdrew the company's stablecoin plans, and Jingdong Coinlink is reported to have effectively abandoned its application.

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What Anchorpoint Actually Is

Anchorpoint Financial was incorporated in February 2025 and filed its licence application on the first day the ordinance was in force. The joint venture brings together three distinct sets of capabilities. Standard Chartered contributes banking infrastructure and reserve custody. Animoca Brands brings Web3 integration across NFT platforms, blockchain gaming, and digital asset economies. HKT adds telecom infrastructure and an existing digital wallet distribution network for retail users.

The venture is developing an HKD-pegged fiat-referenced stablecoin (FRS), a category of digital token that holds its value by reference to a fiat currency and must be backed one-for-one by high-quality liquid assets under Hong Kong's rules. Redemption at face value must be available within one business day.

Standard Chartered's Hong Kong and Greater China CEO Mary Huen described the goal plainly at the JV's launch: "We aim to launch a stablecoin that can be used securely by institutions and individuals across a wide number of use cases."

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The Regulatory Framework Behind the Licences

The Stablecoins Ordinance exclusively covers fiat-referenced stablecoins. Non-bank issuers must hold a minimum of HK$25 million in paid-up capital (approximately $3.2 million USD). Banks are exempt from that floor. All issuers must segregate reserve assets from their own balance sheets via trust arrangements and are prohibited from paying interest on stablecoin holdings.

The HKMA allowed offshore custody of reserve assets and offshore private key management, a deliberate concession that made the framework more workable for global institutions. The regulator also permitted outsourced investment managers for reserves and offshore distribution, flexibility measures with particular commercial significance for international firms operating across multiple jurisdictions.

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Where This Sits in the Global Market

The global stablecoin supply hit $313 billion on March 9, an all-time high, according to market data from DefiLlama. Tether (USDT) accounts for roughly $183.5 billion of that total, or about 62.5% of market share. USD Coin (USDC) holds around $78.25 billion, or 25%. Together, the two USD-pegged tokens represent approximately 88% of all stablecoin supply.

The scale gap facing any HKD-pegged stablecoin is significant. JPY Coin, a yen-backed stablecoin, has a market cap of roughly $18.45 million, approximately 0.01% of USDT's size. Comprehensive market data on Asian currency-pegged stablecoins remains limited, and this figure should be read as indicative of the category's current scale rather than a complete picture.

Hong Kong's new framework would give HKD stablecoins regulatory legitimacy in a segment where Asian currency-pegged tokens currently command only a tiny fraction of global supply and have achieved limited market traction.

For users outside the United States, this matters in specific ways. Standard Chartered operates across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and several other markets. An HKD stablecoin within its ecosystem could reduce friction in trade settlement along China-South Asia manufacturing corridors and in commodity finance, including oil, cocoa, and copper, between Hong Kong and East and West Africa. The near-term opportunity is institutional, not retail. South Asian central banks, including India's Reserve Bank of India and Pakistan's State Bank of Pakistan, remain restrictive on crypto-linked payments, which limits cross-border utility until corresponding reforms arrive in those jurisdictions.

For regulators in Nigeria, South Africa, and elsewhere, Hong Kong's model of bank-issued, centrally supervised fiat stablecoins is being studied as a template for regulated digital payment infrastructure, including potential CBDC interoperability. The Central Bank of Nigeria and the South African Reserve Bank are among the institutions monitoring Hong Kong's approach.

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What Comes Next

The March 24 date is unconfirmed and based on unnamed sources. The HKMA has not announced a public timeline. If approvals do arrive this month, the immediate question will be deployment scope: whether early licence holders roll out institutional-only products or move quickly toward retail access. For developers building on Animoca Brands' ecosystem, the detail to watch is whether Anchorpoint opens public APIs or SDK access, which would indicate an intent to build broader ecosystem integration rather than restricting the stablecoin to wholesale settlement between large institutions.

Hong Kong's first licences arrive amid a global regulatory race. The European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation has established a stablecoin licensing regime. Singapore's Monetary Authority of Singapore framework for stablecoin issuers has been live since August 2023. In the United States, the GENIUS Act is advancing in Congress as legislators work toward a federal licensing framework. The UAE's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority has also moved to define stablecoin rules for its market. Hong Kong's first licences would position it among the jurisdictions that have progressed from framework to issuance, a meaningful distinction in a field where regulatory credibility is itself a competitive advantage.