The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) officially issued its first batch of the first two stablecoin issuer licences last month. The licensed entities are HSBC Bank, and “AnchorX” (AnchorX Finance), co-founded by Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), Hong Kong Telecom, and ANTZ Capital Group. This marks an important step for Hong Kong in regulating virtual assets. HKMA Chief Executive Officer Eddie YU Wai-man said the two firms are expected to launch stablecoins with different use cases by mid-year and by year-end. The authority will first observe implementation and risks, and then assess whether to issue subsequent licences.
Will the HKMA issue more stablecoin licences? It will assess risks and strictly control the number of licences
HKMA CEO Eddie YU Wai-man said stablecoins are an emerging financial product, and global regulatory frameworks are still in development. Therefore, the HKMA is actively engaging with international organizations such as the Financial Stability Board to develop a better licensing framework and future regulatory arrangements. In response to concerns about whether more licences will be released, YU emphasized that it will only consider issuing new licences after the first batch of stablecoins officially goes live and the actual operating conditions are observed. Even if more licences are issued in the future, the numbers will be strictly controlled, and determined based on market capacity and emerging risk conditions, to prevent unrealistic expectations in the market.
HKMA Deputy CEO Chan Wai-man also added that the two licensed institutions still need to complete substantial preparation work before formal launch, including system readiness, risk controls, staffing, and local permissions for cross-border application scenarios. The authority will continue long-term monitoring.
Two stablecoin issuers: HSBC and AnchorX, targeting retail payments and cross-border settlement for enterprises
Among the initial round of 36 applicant institutions, HSBC and AnchorX ultimately obtained the licences. The two entities have different market positioning. HSBC, as a note-issuing bank, will adopt a strategy focused mainly on general consumers (the retail side), planning to integrate stablecoins into PayMe and its own in-house applications.
AnchorX, meanwhile, takes an institutional-first approach, targeting the B2B2C market. Its service recipients include financial institutions, cross-border e-commerce, Web3 projects, and small and medium-sized enterprises, focusing on trade settlement, supply-chain finance, and on-chain asset settlement. Together, they will focus respectively on everyday mass payments and enterprises’ cross-border needs, expanding the ecosystem of Hong Kong-dollar stablecoins.
Stablecoins significantly reduce cross-border remittance costs and enable second-level crediting
Regarding the future of payments, the HKMA further explained that international cross-border payments currently rely on the SWIFT system, which has long settlement times and high fees. In the future, with high-frequency, small-value, real-time automated payments through AI Agents, the traditional banking system may struggle to cope, and a digital currency system will be a better solution.
For the general public, while local electronic payments are already fairly mature and stablecoins may not have an obvious short-term impact, in the long run, cross-border transfers are expected to become faster and cheaper. Including tuition remittances, receiving payments from overseas, and cross-border consumption, all are expected to achieve “second-level crediting” and substantially reduce fees.
(Circle CEO: Huge business opportunities are hidden in RMB stablecoins; optimistic about Hong Kong becoming a cross-border payments hub)
This article “Hong Kong’s first launch of two stablecoin licences! HKMA reveals conditions for subsequent licence issuance: steady rollout with strict control of numbers” first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.
