NEWS | Standard Chartered has become the first traditional bank authorized to distribute HKDAP, a Hong Kong dollar backed digital currency called a stablecoin. The bank is a majority shareholder in Anchorpoint Financial, the company that issues HKDAP, and will start helping institutional clients use it for things like fund settlements, internal transfers between its own global offices, and cross border payments.
This comes four months after Hong Kong granted its first stablecoin licenses, with Anchorpoint opening limited access on August 12 through crypto platforms HashKey and OSL. Standard Chartered joining now marks the first time a conventional bank has plugged into this system directly, rather than crypto exchanges being the only way in. Access is still limited to institutions and professional investors for now, with a public retail version expected as early as late 2026.
BMN sees this as a real signal that traditional banks are no longer just watching stablecoins from the sidelines. When a bank managing hundreds of billions of dollars in assets starts actively distributing one, it stops looking like a crypto experiment and starts looking like normal banking infrastructure.
That shift matters most for businesses that move money across borders regularly, since stablecoins promise to settle those payments faster and cheaper than the current banking system usually allows. But this is still an early, institution only rollout, real proof will come once everyday users can actually get their hands on it.
So if one of the world's biggest banks is already moving money through this system, how much longer before your own local bank offers something just like it?
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