Hong Kong’s monetary regulator has expanded its blockchain settlement infrastructure to operate without interruption, allowing banks to process real-value transactions involving tokenized deposits at any time. The upgrade, announced on November 2 during Hong Kong FinTech Week, removes earlier constraints tied to conventional banking hours and forms part of broader efforts to integrate digital assets into the city’s financial system.

EnsembleTX Moves Beyond Banking Hours

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority advanced Project EnsembleTX to a stage that supports 24/7 real-value settlement using tokenized central bank money. Participating institutions can now settle eligible transactions for corporate treasury operations, tokenized investment products and cross-border fund movements outside traditional settlement windows.

When the pilot began handling real-value transactions in November 2025, banks relied on Hong Kong’s existing Real Time Gross Settlement system, which limited activity to standard operating hours. The latest change introduces tokenized central bank money as the settlement medium, ending that restriction. Project Ensemble itself started in March 2024 to examine how banks could settle tokenized assets with wholesale central bank digital money. A sandbox followed in August 2024, enabling controlled testing before real-value operations commenced.

The pilot currently involves 12 banks and 20 other industry participants. Major institutions taking part include HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of China Hong Kong. Standard Chartered has opened a related service on its own blockchain infrastructure that connects to EnsembleTX, giving eligible corporate treasury teams, banks, investment platforms and digital asset firms access to digital commercial bank deposits for liquidity management and investment workflows. China AMC, Finloop and PantherTrade have already completed live tokenized deposit transactions and tokenized money market fund settlements through the platform.

HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue stated at FinTech Week that the authority is introducing tokenized central bank money as a foundation layer for 24/7 settlement. He noted that tokenized bonds, money market funds and bank deposits are already in use within the initiative.

Secondary Market Trials for Tokenized Government Debt

Recognized dealers have completed secondary-market trial trades involving tokenized Exchange Fund Bills, short-term debt instruments issued under the Exchange Fund framework. These trials examined how tokenized government debt can change hands after issuance and support more efficient secondary trading as well as repurchase transactions.

The HKMA intends to expand the testing to include regulated stablecoins for settlement of such trades. No specific start date has been announced. The move aims to connect blockchain-based financial assets with regulated digital payment instruments and test a more complete market cycle that includes secondary liquidity.

Securities and Futures Commission Chief Executive Julia Leung indicated support for the infrastructure, pointing to potential applications in corporate treasury management and secondary trading of tokenized funds. The commission plans continued collaboration with the HKMA and financial institutions on further use cases.

Retail Stablecoin Adoption Advances in Parallel

Alongside the wholesale settlement upgrades, HSBC reported early uptake of its Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, RedCoin. Group CEO Georges Elhedery said the product reached 50,000 users approximately 10 days after its October 23 launch through the PayMe payment application.

Elhedery added that the bank is targeting multi-million users as access expands. PayMe serves more than 3.3 million customers who can activate stablecoin wallets for transfers and merchant payments. HSBC plans to integrate RedCoin into its mobile banking app and enable subscriptions to tokenized investment products, including a Hong Kong dollar money market fund share class. The bank also offers tokenized deposits to wholesale clients in Hong Kong and several other jurisdictions.

HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial were among the first entities licensed under Hong Kong’s stablecoin issuer regime, which took effect in August 2025 and sets standards for reserves, redemption and risk management. Anchorpoint has separately partnered to bring a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin onto the Solana blockchain.

Supporting Infrastructure and Broader Initiatives

The HKMA has launched the tConnect Launchpad with Cyberport to bring financial institutions, technology companies and digital asset businesses together for further tokenization experiments. Additional measures announced during FinTech Week include Project SAGE on responsible use of artificial intelligence agents in financial services, a post-quantum cryptography toolkit developed with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and plans to link Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System with UnionPay International by the end of 2026 for wider QR-code payment reach.

These steps position continuous settlement capability as a practical foundation for tokenized deposits, investment products and regulated digital money within Hong Kong’s regulated financial framework.