Hong Kong Set to Approve First Stablecoin Licenses in March — Who’s In?

The Hong Kong monetary regulator (HKMA) is about to approve the primary license for a stablecoin issuer in March, as proven by a report by Reuters.

The event happens following a interval of regulatory evaluate and the revealing of one of the complete stablecoin frameworks on the earth, which got here into drive in August final yr.

At a Legislative Council assembly on Monday, Hong Kong Financial Authority chief government Eddie Yue stated that the evaluate course of is nearly completed, including that solely a really small variety of candidates will likely be accepted at first.

Yue added that assessments are specializing in core areas reminiscent of stablecoin use instances, reserve backing, threat administration, and anti-money laundering controls.

Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Period Begins Slowly as Regulators Tighten the Bar

As of early February, no stablecoin issuer has but been accepted underneath Hong Kong’s new regime.

The HKMA has indicated that it’s assessing 36 purposes within the first spherical, although the broader business curiosity had greater than 40 potential candidates at one level.

The regulator has thus far been cautious and in July 2025 launched a public registry to watch licensed issuers, however the registry is at the moment empty.

The licensing regime carried out in August covers all issuers of fiat-referenced stablecoins in Hong Kong, in addition to overseas issuers of tokens pegged to the Hong Kong greenback.

The foundations allow licensed issuers to situation, administer, and redeem stablecoins, so long as they’ve full 1:1 reserve assist of high-quality, liquid property underneath belief preparations with accepted custodians.

Issuers should honor redemption requests at par worth inside one enterprise day and are prohibited from paying curiosity to stablecoin holders.

Governance and compliance are additionally given nice focus by the regime.

Based on the principles, issuers ought to be regionally included or licensed organizations which have robust inner controls and have boards which have unbiased administrators with particular compliance capabilities.

They have to carry out due diligence of consumers, undertake the usage of wallets, and cling to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing necessities.

HKMA has a variety of supervisory authority and may add additional phrases to the license, introduce managers, or cancel the license in case of breach of necessities.

Hong Kong Sandbox Attracts Banks, Tech Giants, and Web3 Companies

Quite a lot of high-profile corporations have already develop into the most important members by making use of to the regulatory sandbox of the HKMA.

These embody a three way partnership between Normal Chartered’s Hong Kong arm, Animoca Manufacturers, and telecoms supplier HKT, working underneath the identify Anchorpoint Monetary.

Ant Group’s digital expertise unit has confirmed it’s pursuing a license, whereas Financial institution of China Hong Kong has been reported as an applicant.

HSBC and ICBC additionally signaled their intention to use final yr, though the HKMA has not confirmed the identities of any candidates and has warned that early approvals shouldn’t be seen as endorsements of particular enterprise fashions.

The stablecoin rollout sits inside a broader regulatory and strategic push by Hong Kong to develop a full digital asset stack.

Town already operates a licensing regime for digital asset buying and selling platforms underneath the Securities and Futures Fee, with 11 exchanges accepted thus far, together with OSL, HashKey, and Bullish.

Authorities officers have repeatedly framed stablecoins as infrastructure quite than speculative merchandise.

On the World Financial Discussion board in Davos in January, Monetary Secretary Paul Chan stated Hong Kong’s strategy to crypto regulation is meant to be “accountable and sustainable,” describing digital finance as a strategic development pillar for the town.

On the similar time, business teams have cautioned that rising compliance prices might sluggish institutional participation if guidelines develop into overly restrictive.

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