BlackRock's First Asia-Pacific Tokenised Fund Clears Hong Kong Regulator, Settles via Licensed Stablecoin

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) granted authorisation on 11 September 2026 to the BlackRock HKD Digital Liquidity Fund, making it BlackRock’s inaugural tokenised product in Hong Kong and across the Asia-Pacific region. The fund allocates to short-term Hong Kong dollar money-market instruments, including government bills and deposits, placing it squarely in the liquidity-management segment that institutional investors treat as cash-equivalent.

Standard Chartered occupies an unusually broad role in the structure, serving simultaneously as custodian, fund administrator, and trustee while also managing the tokenisation integration itself. Investors may settle subscriptions and redemptions via conventional fiat, tokenised deposits, or HKDAP, the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin issued by Anchorpoint Financial, a Standard Chartered-led entity. The HKDAP usage represents the first commercial application of an HKMA-licensed stablecoin beyond its own institutional beta programme, which marks a concrete step in Hong Kong’s stablecoin-to-market pathway.

Standard Chartered has indicated plans to open the same tokenised subscription and settlement infrastructure to additional asset managers in the fourth quarter of 2026. That stated intent suggests the bank is positioning this BlackRock launch as a reference implementation rather than a proprietary arrangement, with commercial scalability the apparent objective.