Ant International Expands Tokenised Deposit Corridors With HSBC and OCBC Into Middle East
Key points
- Ant International's WhaleRTP treasury platform now has 20 bank partners globally, supporting real-time transfers in more than 17 currencies.
- The HSBC expansion centres on the Middle East, with pilot transactions covering tokenised UAE dirham transfers within the UAE and cross-border US dollar flows from the UAE to Hong Kong and Singapore.
- HSBC's Tokenised Deposit Service also covers EUR, GBP, HKD, and SGD alongside the newly piloted dirham and USD corridors.
- Ant International's stated near-term objective is to establish a global treasury hub in the Middle East, according to SVP Kelvin Li.
- The incremental corridor-by-corridor build suggests tokenised deposit rails are advancing through bilateral bank partnerships rather than through a single multilateral infrastructure.
Ant International has extended its tokenised deposit arrangements with both HSBC and OCBC, deepening the banking network underpinning WhaleRTP, its distributed-ledger treasury management platform. The network now spans 20 banks globally and supports real-time transfers in more than 17 currencies across Hong Kong, Singapore, Europe, and the United States.
The most operationally significant expansion involves HSBC’s Tokenised Deposit Service and a push into the Middle East. Ant has completed pilot transactions moving tokenised UAE dirhams within the country, alongside cross-border US dollar flows from the UAE to Hong Kong and Singapore. HSBC additionally supports euro, sterling, Hong Kong dollar, and Singapore dollar denominations through the service. Kelvin Li, General Manager of Platform Tech and SVP at Ant International, described the aim as establishing a global treasury hub in the Middle East to support Ant’s broader international operations.
The corridor additions matter because they illustrate how tokenised deposit infrastructure is being assembled incrementally by large non-bank payment operators, with established banks providing the licensed deposit wrapper. For treasury operators watching the space, the UAE dirham pilot is a concrete data point that regulated tokenised cash is moving beyond the usual G10 currency set, and that cross-border settlement between the Gulf and Asia is being tested at transaction level rather than only at the policy or proof-of-concept stage.
More on the wire
- Partior and LSEG DiSH build always-on liquidity bridge for cross-border settlement
- Partior and LSEG DiSH to close interbank settlement gap with tokenised cash layer
- DBS, OCBC and UOB complete first interbank tokenised deposit payments on Swift Ledger
- DBS, OCBC and UOB settle live SGD interbank transactions on Swift's blockchain ledger