HKMA Plans Wholesale CBDC for Interbank Settlement by End of 2025
Key points
- The HKMA intends to make a wholesale CBDC available for interbank settlement of tokenised deposits under Project EnsembleTX by the end of 2026.
- Project EnsembleTX began a live transaction pilot in late 2025, but interbank settlement has until now depended on the existing RTGS system and its operating-hour limitations.
- The wCBDC is also planned for use by HKEX to settle after-hours derivatives trading, a previously announced application.
- Real-value transactions are targeted for delivery within the same 2026 timeframe, indicating the intent moves beyond sandbox conditions.
- The announcement was made as part of Hong Kong's 2026 policy address, reflecting government-level commitment rather than a regulatory consultation.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has announced plans to launch a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) before the end of the year, with interbank settlement of tokenised deposits under Project EnsembleTX as its primary use case. The announcement came as part of Hong Kong’s 2026 policy address delivered by the Chief Executive, positioning the wCBDC as the settlement backbone for a 24/7 interbank payments infrastructure.
The driver is a structural gap in the current setup. Project EnsembleTX entered a live transaction pilot phase in late 2025, but interbank settlement has so far relied on the conventional real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system, whose operating hours constrain when banks can actually clear positions against one another. A wCBDC running on distributed infrastructure removes that constraint, enabling round-the-clock finality that single-bank tokenised deposit systems cannot achieve on their own.
Beyond interbank payments, the HKMA’s plans extend the wCBDC to Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) settlement for after-hours derivatives trading, a use case that had been flagged previously. The policy address also targets real-value transactions for this year, suggesting the ambition is operational settlement rather than continued sandboxing. Whether the infrastructure can absorb both the interbank and exchange-settlement workloads on the same timeline is the execution question worth watching.