Standard Chartered takes HKDAP into banking mainstream

Standard Chartered has become the first bank to offer a regulated Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, Anchorpoint Financial’s HKDAP, to eligible institutional clients and partners. This move marks a significant step in Hong Kong’s push to integrate tokenised money into mainstream financial services. The bank plans to help customers integrate HKDAP into various financial and commercial operations, including money-market fund subscriptions, settlements with asset managers, inter-entity transfers, and cross-border payments.

HKDAP stands for HKD At Par and maintains a one-to-one value with the Hong Kong dollar. Currently available through a controlled beta programme, the stablecoin is issued by Anchorpoint Financial, a venture established with HKT and Animoca Brands, of which Standard Chartered is the majority shareholder. Under Anchorpoint’s business-to-business-to-consumer model, authorised distributors, like Standard Chartered, provide access to the token after conducting customer onboarding and know-your-customer checks.

This distribution channel is a crucial step towards commercial use, as the small circulation and transaction volumes indicate a controlled institutional testing phase. Standard Chartered, with its extensive global reach and substantial assets, could give HKDAP a significant distribution advantage. The bank is accelerating its digital-asset strategy, already providing institutional trading in deliverable spot Bitcoin and Ether, expanding digital-asset custody services, and developing blockchain-based settlement and collateral arrangements.

Hong Kong’s regulated stablecoin experiment, overseen by the monetary authority, aims to differentiate supervised fiat-backed tokens from less regulated alternatives, as other globally significant banks, including HSBC, prepare their own Hong Kong dollar stablecoins.