Standard Chartered, Animoca Brands, HKT launch Hong Kong’s first regulated HKD stablecoin

Three heavyweights from banking, telecom, and Web3 have teamed up to issue what amounts to a digital Hong Kong dollar. Standard Chartered’s Hong Kong arm, telecom giant HKT, and gaming-and-metaverse conglomerate Animoca Brands created a joint venture called Anchorpoint Financial Limited, which received a stablecoin issuer licence from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority on April 10, 2026. The product, called HKDAP (short for “HKD At Par”), will be fully backed 1:1 by liquid Hong Kong dollar reserves held in segregated accounts. It’s one of only two stablecoin licences the HKMA has granted so far. What HKDAP actually is, and who it’s for HKDAP is designed to track the Hong Kong dollar at a strict one-to-one peg, with reserves ringfenced under the HKMA’s rules. The stablecoin’s initial audience is institutional. Anchorpoint plans to use a B2B2C distribution model, meaning it will sell HKDAP to businesses and platforms that then pass it along to their own customers. Licensed exchanges OSL and HashKey have already been involved in testing, serving as the probable first on-ramps for trading and settlement. Public blockchain testing wrapped up on May 13, 2026, with full redemption cycles co...