HSBC is prioritising retail uses for its upcoming Hong Kong stablecoin, with wealth management identified as one of the digital currency’s early use cases.
The bank was granted one of two stablecoin licences by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority last month, with the other going to Anchorpoint Financial, a joint venture between Standard Chartered, HKT and Animoca Brands.
HSBC’s stablecoin launch is scheduled for the second half of the year, with some reports suggesting it may debut during Hong Kong Fintech Week in November.
The as-yet unnamed stablecoin will be offered for retail ahead of wholesale customers, Yvonne Yiu, head of global payments solutions, Greater China at HSBC, told The Banker.
“In the digital merchant space, we can already accept 15 types of payments, and in due course we will enable our digital merchant solutions to support stablecoin acceptance,” Yiu added.
Wealth management, which is expanding rapidly in Hong Kong, is likely to prove a particularly attractive use case for the new digital currency, she said, in a space that is becoming increasingly tokenised.
“Tokenised bonds and gold can give investors more flexibility: they can invest at the point in time they like and earn interest at the weekend,” she said.
“Assets could be broken down into smaller chunks, making it more accessible to more investors.”
Wealth is a growing segment of HSBC’s business, with international wealth and premier banking accounting for 14.6 per cent of the bank’s profits in 2025, up from 12.3 per cent the previous year. Globally, HSBC held $2.1tn in wealth balances at the end of 2025, with more than $1tn booked in Asia.
HSBC’s stablecoin will be available via the bank’s two mobile apps, PayMe and HSBC HK Mobile Banking.
The bank is also exploring how to make the most of the built-in programmability of stablecoins, said Yiu.
“The programmable nature of stablecoins is helping in the development of more use cases, for example, in the insurance and education sectors, where additional information and conditions can be set for their use,” she said.
Unauthorised use of stablecoins is on the rise in Hong Kong, and the HKMA warned last month about unregulated coins now in circulation. Labelled as HKDAP and HSBC, the coins are not connected to an authorised lender.
HSBC has also been working with Swift on the development of its blockchain-based shared ledger, which will enable round-the-clock cross-border payments, through tokenised deposits. “We hope to be among the first batch of banks to use it,” Yiu added.
Additionally, HSBC is one of 30 banks working with Swift on its digital payment pilot projects, which aims to be fully interoperable with stablecoins and CBDCs. At the end of 2025, the bank partnered with Ant International to test Swift’s ISO 20022 payments network to conduct cross-border transactions.