How Hong Kong’s fintech strategy is progressing – and where growth still lags
Hong Kong has touted rapid progress in the first year of its five-year fintech strategy, pledging to double down on artificial intelligence and tokenisation even as many initiatives face the challenge of achieving commercial scale. Tokenisation, for instance, had moved from the sandbox “into the real world”, said Eddie Yue Wai-man, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), at…
Hong Kong has made strides in its five-year fintech strategy, according to officials at the city's annual FinTech Week conference. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has authorized 17 tokenised public funds and bonds, totaling US$1.3 billion – a 34% increase from the previous year. The HKMA also unveiled Project Sage, which aims to bring AI agents to financial services.
Additionally, the city's de facto central bank plans to prepare the financial sector for cybersecurity threats from quantum computing by 2030. However, challenges remain as high compliance costs hinder market growth. Hong Kong's stablecoin development is currently lagging behind other regions; in 2021, the city accounted for only about US$305 million of global US dollar-backed stablecoins, compared to US$79.4 billion in the US.
Despite this, industry participants believe that Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoins could provide ease of cross-border payments in specific corridors, such as trade between Hong Kong and other Asian markets. The outlook for Hong Kong's fintech industry remains positive if the city can integrate fintech more deeply into mainstream finance by leveraging its existing strengths as an international financial centre.
Written by urgent.news from SCMP Business's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
