Standard Chartered First Bank to Distribute Hong Kong Dollar Stablecoin

Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong has become the first bank to distribute HKDAP (HKD At Par), a live, regulated local-currency stablecoin issued by Anchorpoint Financial. This development makes Standard Chartered the largest shareholder of Anchorpoint and comes after two stablecoin issuer licenses were granted to Anchorpoint and HSBC in April.

Anchorpoint launched HKDAP through a controlled beta rollout on Ethereum for institutions and professional investors this month, with 522,000 tokens in circulation as of August 19. The project aims to provide tokenized money market fund subscription and settlement services, which Standard Chartered plans to introduce during the fourth quarter of 2026.

The bank will also test HKDAP for transfers between companies within its group and explore potential applications such as cross-border payments, treasury management, and transfers outside conventional banking hours. However, no commercial launch date has been announced beyond the Q4 target for tokenized fund subscriptions and settlement services.