Anchorpoint, a joint venture formed in February 2025, counts Standard Chartered Bank (HK) as its largest shareholder alongside telecom giant HKT and Web3 firm Animoca Brands. Its token, HKDAP (short for "HKD At Par"), maintains a 1:1 peg to the Hong Kong dollar and is backed by high-quality HKD liquid assets. The current phase is limited to authorized distributors, corporate users, and professional investors. Retail access is being targeted for as early as the end of 2026, subject to market conditions, according to an Anchorpoint statement published Wednesday.

The HKMA issued Anchorpoint and HSBC the city's first two stablecoin licenses on April 10, 2026, after reviewing 36 applications. Only those two were approved in the initial batch, an acceptance rate of roughly 5.5%.

The licensing regime itself took effect on August 1, 2025, under the Stablecoins Ordinance, which created a formal framework for fiat-referenced stablecoins (tokens designed to hold a fixed value relative to an official currency). Penalties for operating without a license are steep: up to HK$5 million in fines and seven years in prison for unlicensed issuance. A second penalty tier targets distribution: marketing an unlicensed stablecoin to retail clients carries fines of up to HK$50,000 and six months' imprisonment, a provision that gains relevance as licensed issuers prepare for consumer rollouts.

Standard Chartered Group CEO Bill Winters said in a prepared statement that HKDAP offers "a powerful regulated medium of exchange that will further the rewiring of our financial markets."

Anchorpoint CEO Dominic Maffei described the token's purpose as empowering the ecosystem with "a secure, accessible and regulated form of tokenised money."

The company has been executing its phased approach in a prudent and structured manner, according to Anchorpoint's launch materials.

The choice to license Standard Chartered and HSBC first is not arbitrary. Both banks are among only three institutions authorized to issue Hong Kong dollar banknotes, a privilege dating to 1846. The third authorized note-issuing bank, Bank of China (Hong Kong), was not among the first licensees, a distinction likely to prompt questions given the shared heritage of that note-issuance privilege.

The HKMA effectively extended that trust relationship into the digital layer. HSBC's own HKD stablecoin is targeting a second-half 2026 launch integrated with PayMe and HSBC HK Mobile Banking, which together serve around 3.3 million users. Two competing licensed HKD stablecoins running simultaneously will raise a practical question heading into 2027: which token will trade finance platforms, DeFi protocols, and cross-border settlement systems treat as the standard?

A Market Dominated by Dollars

The global stablecoin market stood at roughly $313 billion as of mid-2026, supporting an estimated $33 trillion in annualized settlement volume. Tether (USDT) holds approximately $184.7 billion of that supply, or about 59%, while USDC accounts for another $73.8 billion. Dollar-denominated tokens make up close to 99% of the total market. Non-USD stablecoins collectively represent less than 0.5% of supply, a figure ranging between $771 million and $1.2 billion depending on methodology. HKDAP is entering that structural gap; non-USD stablecoins constitute the fastest-growing segment of the stablecoin market by growth rate, though HKDAP itself starts from a near-zero base.

On-chain supply data for HKDAP is not yet available from DefiLlama or CoinGecko, as the token's contract address has not been publicly confirmed at time of publication. The specific public blockchain on which HKDAP will operate has also not been publicly confirmed, information that is material for developers and builders evaluating the ecosystem.

Regional Stakes Beyond Hong Kong

Asia-originated stablecoin payments account for roughly $245 billion, or about 60% of global stablecoin payment volume, concentrated in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. South Asia is the fastest-growing region for crypto adoption, recording 80% growth in transaction volumes through mid-2025, the most recent period for which regional data is available.

That activity has run almost entirely through USDT. A regulated, HKD-backed instrument creates a potential alternative for South Asian exporters settling trade with Hong Kong-connected or mainland China-linked buyers without routing through dollar liquidity. Interoperability between HKD-pegged and USD-pegged instruments remains technically unresolved, and without cross-currency coordination frameworks such as ASEAN-level standards or BIS coordination mechanisms, that friction will limit uptake.

For Africa, the implications are more structural than immediate. Hong Kong has positioned itself as a routing node for China-Africa trade, which reached approximately $282 billion (2023 figures, the most recent available).

If HKDAP becomes infrastructure for Hong Kong-routed trade settlement, it could eventually reach payment rails used in African commodity and manufacturing transactions with Chinese counterparties. African regulators are also watching Hong Kong's licensing model closely. The HKMA's combination of reserve requirements, minimum capital thresholds (HK$25 million paid-up capital), travel rule application above HK$8,000, and whitelist-only wallet transfers provides a compliance template that regulators from Nigeria to Kenya have been monitoring.

One factor shaping the entire picture is mainland China's policy posture. On February 6, 2026, eight Chinese regulators jointly banned onshore tokenization of real-world assets and restricted private issuance of RMB-linked stablecoins domestically. Ledger Insights noted at the time that the directive is not an offshore ban; it targets domestic activities and does not constitute a broad prohibition on RMB-related digital asset activity beyond China's borders. Nevertheless, the directive reportedly pressured some mainland-linked brokerages to pause real-world asset tokenization in Hong Kong, creating a tension between Beijing's capital control concerns and Hong Kong's ambitions as a digital asset hub.

That directive effectively walls off RMB-denominated digital currency experimentation from private actors and hands Hong Kong a structural opening. The city can denominate regulated stablecoin infrastructure in HKD, which is itself pegged to the US dollar through the Linked Exchange Rate System, keeping dollar-adjacent liquidity accessible while remaining within Hong Kong's legal jurisdiction. As an April 2026 Asia Times analysis framed it, the contest is not about crypto speculation. It is about payment rails, trade finance architecture, and who controls the plumbing of cross-border liquidity in Asia.