Hong Kong is the most active APAC jurisdiction outside Singapore on tokenisation, running parallel tracks across the HKMA (Hong Kong Monetary Authority) for tokenised deposits and wholesale CBDC, SFC HK for tokenised investment products and intermediary licensing, and the Stablecoins Ordinance regime that commenced 1 August 2025. The posture is permission-with-perimeter: clear licensing routes, a deliberate stretch to fit a wide set of fiat-referenced designs, and an explicit appetite to host cross-border infrastructure now that mBridge has graduated. Hong Kong differentiates from Singapore on stablecoin scope (broader than the SCS framework), from Tokyo on the speed of secondary-market plumbing for tokenised funds, and from London on the willingness to integrate offshore renminbi flows into the same wrappers.
Regulatory posture
Two lead agencies own different slices of the stack. HKMA runs the wholesale layer through Project Ensemble, stablecoin issuer licensing under the Stablecoins Ordinance, and the bank-money plumbing for tokenised deposits. SFC HK runs the investor-facing layer: intermediary licensing for tokenised investment products, the secondary-trading framework for tokenised authorised funds, and supervision of virtual-asset trading platforms.
The April 2026 SFC framework permitting secondary trading of tokenised SFC-authorised investment products is the most consequential move of the period: tokenised authorised funds could previously be issued and primary-distributed but not freely traded on a secondary venue, and opening that gate inside the existing perimeter unlocks treasury-style use cases.
Active pilots and frameworks
- Project Ensemble / EnsembleTX. HKMA-led wholesale tokenisation programme covering tokenised deposits, tokenised assets, and a wholesale CBDC. The November 2025 EnsembleTX phase moved from sandbox to real-value transactions with named banks (Standard Chartered, HSBC, Bank of China HK) and asset managers (BlackRock, Franklin Templeton), settling tokenised MMF (money-market fund) transactions with tokenised deposits over an HKD RTGS interbank leg pending upgrade to 24/7 tokenised central-bank money.
- HK Stablecoins Ordinance regime. Commenced 1 August 2025; the first issuer licences went on 10 April 2026 to HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial (a Standard Chartered HK, HKT and Animoca JV), from a queue reported at 36 applications. Issuance has not yet started; HSBC has signalled an HKD launch in H2 2026 integrated into PayMe and the HSBC HK App. See HK Stablecoins Ordinance theme.
- VATP regime expansion (3 Nov 2025). SFC circulars admit tokenised securities and regulated stablecoins onto VATPs (virtual asset trading platforms), widen custody scope, and authorise global affiliate order-book integration for the professional-investor segment, targeting the liquidity fragmentation that has constrained HK VATP volumes since 2023. See HK SFC VATP regime expansion.
- VA dealer and custodian licensing regime (2026 target). SFC and FSTB confirmed in December 2025 a legislative push for a VA dealer and custodian licensing framework via AMLO amendments, closing the perimeter gap on standalone custody and OTC dealing outside the VATP context.
- Staking-enabled spot ETH ETFs. Bosera International (with HashKey) and ChinaAMC (with OSL) launched staking-enabled products in April and May 2025 under the SFC's ASPIRe roadmap. See Hong Kong's staking-enabled ETH ETF regime.
Open questions
- Body text for SFC press releases 26PR58 through 26PR64 was not covered in sources reviewed for this page; the headline framing for the secondary-trading framework is therefore single-sourced. See
outputs/_questions.md. - Whether the secondary-trading framework will admit tokenised MMF wrappers (see Stablecoin types) under the same conditions as tokenised authorised funds, or whether MMFs will be treated as a separate category.
- Whether the IOSCO Committee 2 meeting in HK substantively touched tokenised secondary markets or stayed on conventional FMI questions.
Related
- hong kong stablecoins ordinance for the Ordinance deep dive, including the April 2026 licence awards.
- hong kong project ensemble architecture and HKMA EnsembleTX for the wholesale architecture and the move to real-value transactions.
- SC + Ant Whale tokenised deposit and DBS-Kinexys interoperability framework for the tokenised-deposit production layer.
- hong kong tokenised authorised funds and hong kong sfc vatp regime expansion for the SFC's investor-facing regimes.
- Stablecoin types and Tokenisation, defined for the underlying frameworks.
- BIS, BIS Innovation Hub for the Hong Kong-based BIS Innovation Hub Centre.