At a glance

  • The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has moved EnsembleTX, its tokenisation pilot, to a new stage that allows real-value transactions 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it said on Monday.
  • Recognised Dealers have completed secondary-market trial trades in tokenised Exchange Fund Bills, the HKMA’s own short-term debt, and the regulator “will soon expand the trials to include regulated stablecoins”, according to the release.

The HKMA announced the changes on Monday at Hong Kong FinTech Week, which it co-organises with Invest Hong Kong. Round-the-clock settlement lets banks and their clients shift funds between markets, manage tokenised asset portfolios and run treasury operations at any hour, the regulator said.

The bill trades let dealers buy and sell tokenised Exchange Fund Bills after issue, which the HKMA said should make secondary and repo trading more efficient. It gave no date for the stablecoin trials and did not name the participating dealers.

“Banks and fintech firms can better harness data, A.I., tokenisation and other emerging technologies,” said Eddie Yue, the HKMA’s chief executive.

From office hours to 24/7

When the HKMA launched EnsembleTX on 13 Nov 2025, interbank settlement of tokenised deposit transactions ran through Hong Kong’s existing real-time gross settlement system, which operates set hours. The regulator said then it would upgrade the pilot to settle in tokenised central bank money around the clock, and that the pilot would run throughout 2026.

Monday’s release confirms the 24/7 stage but does not say which settlement asset it uses. Speaking at the event, Yue described tokenised central bank money as the “foundation layer” for 24/7 settlement, Cointelegraph reported.

The HKMA also launched tConnect Launchpad with Cyberport to test tokenisation use cases. Separately, it said Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System will link with UnionPay International by the end of this year, letting users pay by QR code at more than 100 million merchants in Hong Kong, mainland China and over 40 overseas markets.

RedCoin reaches 50,000 users

HSBC’s Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, RedCoin, has 50,000 users about 10 days after launch, HSBC Group chief executive Georges Elhedery said at the same event, according to the South China Morning Post and Cointelegraph. He said the bank was aiming for “multi-million users”, Cointelegraph reported.

HSBC launched RedCoin on PayMe on 23 Oct, making it available to more than 3.3 million PayMe users. That puts take-up at roughly 1.5% of the eligible base so far.

What it changes for users and merchants

EnsembleTX is a wholesale pilot for banks and their institutional clients. The 24/7 stage changes when they can settle tokenised deposits and assets; it does not change how shoppers pay.

The retail changes are elsewhere: RedCoin inside PayMe today, and the Faster Payment System’s UnionPay link due by the end of the year. The HKMA has not yet said what role regulated stablecoins will play in the bill trials.

For how reserves are meant to keep a stablecoin at par, see what a stablecoin is and how reserves back it.

Elsewhere in the region, Malaysia and Thailand joined Singapore’s BLOOM network.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.