Hong Kong Upgrades Tokenized Settlement, Plans Stablecoin Trials

Hong Kong’s monetary authority has upgraded its EnsembleTX pilot to support round-the-clock settlement of real-value tokenized transactions and plans to include regulated stablecoins in trials involving tokenized government debt. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the changes on November 2, as HSBC separately reported early adoption of its Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, RedCoin. The expanded capability is intended to let participating banks settle tokenized transactions beyond conventional banking hours. The HKMA said this could support fund transfers, tokenized investments and treasury operations. The project’s earlier real-value trials relied on Hong Kong’s existing dollar settlement system, which limited settlement to its operating hours. The authority said recognized dealers had completed secondary-market trial trades in tokenized Exchange Fund Bills, short-term debt issued by the HKMA. It plans to expand those trials to include regulated stablecoins, but did not give a start date. The trials focus on tokenized debt and settlement; the separate RedCoin rollout is aimed at retail payments. Project Ensemble began in March 2024 to explore settlement of tokenized...