Weekend Trading Takes Hold as Financial Industry Pushes for 24/7 Market Access

The traditional weekend pause in financial markets is slowly disappearing. Companies like Coinbase, Robinhood, and HSBC are pushing the boundaries of traditional trading hours with new clearing infrastructure, trading access, and digital money that can move beyond traditional banking hours.

Over the past weekend, Coinbase won US approval for its own clearing house, built around the USDC stablecoin, which allows for 24/7 settlement. Robinhood plans to let customers trade selected US stocks every day of the week, including weekends. HSBC's upcoming Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, RedCoin, will enable person-to-person and merchant payments, with the potential to expand into wholesale corporate and institutional use cases.

The shift towards longer market hours is taking different forms. In the US, brokers and crypto platforms are extending access to trading and clearing, while in Hong Kong, HSBC is building the payments infrastructure around it. However, the bigger challenge is liquidity: getting enough buyers and sellers to show up on a Sunday for weekend prices to be as dependable as weekday ones.