PANews reported on July 18 that the Hong Kong Treasury and the HKMA recently published a consultation summary on the regulatory system for stablecoin issuers. Jeffrey, chief analyst of HashKey Group, believes that Hong Kong currently has a strict regulatory system for issuers of fiat stablecoins, requiring issuers to ensure that fiat stablecoins are fully supported by high-quality and highly liquid reserve assets. Currently, only licensed fiat stablecoin issuers, authorized institutions, licensed corporations, and licensed virtual asset trading platforms can provide stablecoins. Hong Kong's largest licensed exchange Hashkey Exchange, Yuanbi Technology, Allinpay international and other companies have planned to issue Hong Kong dollar stablecoins.
As for the USDT and USDC, which have the highest adoption rates, whether they can be traded in Hong Kong in the future depends on whether they can successfully transition. The first problem is that only issuers with physical companies in Hong Kong can apply. Second, if we look at the European MiCA stablecoin regulatory policy, perhaps only issuers that support placing reserves in banks can be recognized by regulators in the changing situation, which will hinder some issuers.
On the other hand, Hong Kong may also see a scenario where stablecoins "bloom in many directions". For example, banks have their own stablecoins, and exchanges have their own stablecoins. If banks successfully launch their own stablecoins, Hong Kong will be the first place where banks launch stablecoins, which will serve as a model for global stablecoin regulatory policies.
Although the cryptocurrency ecosystem in Hong Kong is still developing, citizens cannot directly use bank money to purchase stablecoins, and there are no adequate payment systems and stored-value methods to cover stablecoins. In addition, in terms of accounting, there are no perfect regulations to determine whether crypto assets can become part of a company's assets. In terms of licenses, you must have a physical company in Hong Kong to apply, and there is no cooperation with other jurisdictions for the time being, so these issues are also worth considering in the future.
However, the launch of stablecoins will enable Hong Kong people to enter the cryptocurrency market more safely, which will be beneficial to the development of the entire cryptocurrency industry and ultimately more beneficial to the entire industry.
