Hong Kong tokenized settlement now runs around the clock at 12 banks

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said on Monday 2 November that EnsembleTX, the pilot phase of Project Ensemble, now settles interbank tokenized deposit transactions around the clock. Banks pay each other in tokenized central bank money and no longer wait for the Hong Kong dollar settlement system to open, Cointelegraph reported.

Hong Kong tokenized settlement has used real money since November 2025. Until this week it ran through the HKD Real Time Gross Settlement system, so payments stopped whenever that system closed. The HKMA announced the change at Hong Kong FinTech Week in a press release.

Who takes part

• 12 banks, including HSBC, Standard Chartered, Bank of China (Hong Kong), China Construction Bank (Asia) and ICBC (Asia).
• 20 "industry pioneers", among them BlackRock, Ant International and China Asset Management.
• Use cases so far: corporate treasury, tokenized deposits and tokenized money market funds.

HKMA chief executive Eddie Yue called tokenized central bank money a "foundation layer" for 24/7 settlement. SFC chief executive Julia Leung said the move "represents a significant step towards a more scalable tokenised market in Hong Kong."

“In just two years, Project Ensemble has transitioned from experimentation and piloting to a new phase.”

— Eddie Yue, Chief Executive of the HKMA · hkma.gov.hk

Stablecoins come next

Recognised dealers also completed trial trades of tokenized Exchange Fund Bills, the HKMA's own short-term debt, on the secondary market. The regulator plans to add licensed stablecoins to those trials soon. It gave no date and has not published how much value EnsembleTX has settled.

The city has two licensed issuers to pick from. The HKMA took 36 applications and in April licensed HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial, the Standard Chartered-backed venture behind HKDAP. The other 34 applicants still have no licence, as we counted in our piece on Hong Kong's licensing record.

What HSBC's numbers show

HSBC launched RedCoin, its Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, on 23 October inside the PayMe app. Group CEO Georges Elhedery said at FinTech Week that it reached 50,000 users in about ten days and that the bank targets "multi-million users."

By our count, 50,000 users is about 1.5% of the 3.3 million PayMe customers who, according to HSBC, can switch on a stablecoin wallet. To reach two million, the lowest reading of "multi-million", RedCoin needs 40 times its current base.

The 24/7 rail runs between banks. If you bank in Hong Kong, you reach it through products such as RedCoin. HSBC plans to add the stablecoin to its mobile banking app and let customers subscribe to tokenized funds, including a Hong Kong dollar money market fund share class.

The HKMA has not published transaction volumes for EnsembleTX; RedCoin user figures come from HSBC.