This article is selected from the *Fudan Financial Review*.
Authors: Gao Huasheng, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee, Vice Dean, Professor of Finance, and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of International Finance, Fudan University; a long-time researcher of crypto assets; author of the "Stablecoins: The Future of Digital Finance" series, etc.; Xu Bo, Postdoctoral Researcher at the School of International Finance, Fudan University.
On April 10, 2026, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) officially issued the first batch of stablecoin issuer licenses to Infintech Limited and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited.
With this, Hong Kong has essentially completed the closed-loop system of "legislation-review-licensing" for fiat-backed stablecoins, and has taken the lead in advancing stablecoin regulation to the implementation and business preparation stage.
The significance of this event lies not only in Hong Kong issuing the first batch of licenses, but also in the changing functional positioning of stablecoins in Hong Kong . They are no longer merely auxiliary tools in cryptocurrency trading, but are explicitly embedded in real-world financial activities such as cross-border payments, local payments, tokenized asset trading, and programmable finance. In other words, Hong Kong's promotion of stablecoins is not aimed at creating new speculative narratives, but rather at shaping them into part of the digital financial infrastructure .
The composition of the first batch of licensed entities sends a particularly clear signal about this system. Dingdian Financial Technology was jointly established by Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), Hong Kong Telecom, and Animoca Brands, while HSBC became another institution among the first to receive a license. This combination suggests that Hong Kong's first batch of stablecoins is not simply the legalization of "crypto-native projects," but rather a more institutional integration of banking credit, payment gateways, and on-chain capabilities.
More notably, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) received 36 applications before the initial application deadline, but ultimately only granted licenses to two institutions, resulting in an initial licensing rate of only about 5.6% . The HKMA also clarified that the number of licenses issued in the future will remain "very limited." This indicates that Hong Kong is not pursuing a loose expansionary approach, but rather a high-threshold, selective entry policy .
The reason why Hong Kong's issuance of licenses is noteworthy is that its "first-mover advantage" is not just a slogan. On May 21, 2025, the Hong Kong Legislative Council passed the Stablecoin Bill; on May 30, the bill was gazetted; on August 1, the Stablecoin Ordinance officially came into effect; and on April 10, 2026, the first batch of licenses were officially issued. Hong Kong has completed the entire chain of "legislation - review - licensing" .
In contrast, while the EU's MiCA regulations related to stablecoins are applicable from June 30, 2024, the overall framework will not be fully implemented until December 30, 2024; the UK FCA's application window for new crypto asset businesses will not open until September 30, 2026, with the new regulations expected to take effect on October 25, 2027. At least in terms of the pace of policy implementation, Hong Kong has already gained a head start among major international financial centers.
More importantly, Hong Kong is not just about licenses without practical applications. The Hong Kong government completed its first HK$800 million tokenized green bond issuance in February 2023, followed by a HK$6 billion digital green bond issuance in February 2024, covering Hong Kong dollars, renminbi, US dollars, and euros. Meanwhile, the first phase of e-HKD has attracted 16 institutions, covering six application scenarios; Project Ensemble Sandbox has also been launched and is gradually entering a new phase supporting real-value transactions. In other words, Hong Kong's licensing this time is not starting from scratch, but rather building upon a preliminary on-chain financial experiment and infrastructure.
Of course, the importance of Hong Kong's licensing should not be simply interpreted as it immediately reshaping the global stablecoin landscape. Currently, the total market capitalization of the global stablecoin market has reached $317 billion, an increase of over 50% since the beginning of 2025; however, structurally, over 90% of fiat-backed stablecoins are still pegged to the US dollar, with USDT and USDC together accounting for approximately 93% of the total market capitalization .
This means that on-chain finance has not fundamentally rewritten the global monetary power structure to date, but rather has largely perpetuated the dominance of the US dollar's credit, assets, and liquidity. Hong Kong's breakthrough this time is not so much about challenging the US dollar in the short term, but about pioneering a more institutionalized, verifiable, and feasible development path for non-US dollar stablecoins .
Within the broader context of China's digital finance, the true significance of Hong Kong's issuance of this license may not lie in whether the mainland will immediately replicate a RMB stablecoin system, but rather in its further highlighting of a more layered arrangement: domestically, the digital RMB safeguards the bottom line of legal tender , retail payments, and regulation, while overseas, Hong Kong serves as an offshore testing ground to explore the application boundaries of compliant stablecoins in cross-border payments, on-chain settlements, and tokenized asset transactions.
The digital yuan leans more towards official leadership and domestic institutional development, while Hong Kong-licensed stablecoins are closer to offshore markets, international payments, and on-chain transaction scenarios. They are not necessarily substitutes, but rather more likely to form a tiered, complementary structure.
However, necessary restraint should be maintained. A closed-loop system does not equate to a closed-loop market, and the issuance of the first batch of licenses does not mean the competitive landscape is set. Whether the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin can truly succeed still depends on whether it can generate a sufficiently strong network effect, payment demand, and scenario stickiness. Especially given that US dollar stablecoins have already established a clear first-mover advantage, whether the Hong Kong model can evolve from a "high-quality model" to a "system with significant influence" still needs time to prove .
Overall, the issuance of Hong Kong's first batch of stablecoin licenses is indeed an important milestone in the global evolution of stablecoin regulation. What's truly noteworthy is not the extent of Hong Kong's market achievements, but rather that it has pioneered a system model that can be observed, tested, and iterated upon.
Issuing only two licenses out of 36 applications is not a move to flood the market with new licenses, but rather a high-threshold screening of the next generation of digital financial infrastructure. Whether this path will be successful depends not on the number of licenses issued, but on whether institutional credibility, real-world scenarios, payment networks, and on-chain asset transfers can be truly integrated into a cohesive system.
