HSBC announced the launch of its Tokenised Deposit Service in Hong Kong today. The new solution initially caters to corporate treasurers, enabling 24/7 transfers of Hong Kong dollars and US dollars between the wallets of clients of the Hong Kong bank. This makes HSBC the first Hong Kong bank to go live with tokenized deposits after several have been testing as part of Hong Kong’s Project Ensemble sandbox. Ant International is the first client.
Ant previously piloted the platform, with its feedback helping to develop the solution, which uses HSBC’s in-house network and technologies. HSBC said the service “drew inspiration” from previous Ant collaborations and co-developments of blockchain and tokenized deposit solutions.
The first live transaction for Ant involved an intra-group fund transfer via Ant’s Whale DLT platform for blockchain-based payments. Ant previously integrated Whale with numerous banks around the world, including JP Morgan’s Kinexys Digital Payments, DBS Treasury Tokens, BNP Paribas, OCBC and Standard Chartered.
The Whale platform processed three quarters of Ant International’s intragroup cross-border transactions in 2024.
“HSBC shares our commitment to redefine the future of liquidity management through innovation, technology, and collaboration. We believe that tokenisation is the key to bridge the stability of traditional banking, with the efficiency of blockchain,” said Kelvin Li, General Manager of Platform Tech, Ant International.
The aim of the current evolution of tokenized deposit solutions is to improve transparency and efficiencies for corporate treasurers. Rather than dealing with delays or limits in banking hours involved with conventional cross-border transfers, corporate treasurers can move funds instantly, although the HSBC solution is currently only available in Hong Kong. Automation using smart contracts is another feature of tokenized deposits, but we assume is not available in the first iteration.
The HSBC solution is operating as a live pilot under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s (HKMA’s) Supervisory Incubator for Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).
Other banks have launched tokenized deposit solutions, including Citi, DBS, JP Morgan, and UBS.
Source: ledgerinsights
