Anchorpoint Financial Technology, a joint venture backed by Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), HKT and Animoca Brands, plans to launch a regulated Hong Kong dollar stablecoin called HKDAP (HKD At Par) in the second quarter of 2026 after receiving a stablecoin issuance license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). This license, granted under Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Ordinance, which came into force on August 1, 2025, makes Anchorpoint one of the first authorized issuers of fiat-referenced stablecoins in the City of Hong Kong, alongside HSBC, and paves the way for the gradual rollout of HKDAP to institutional investors and eventually retail outlets.
“We aim to launch a regulated Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin, HKDAP (i.e. HKD At Par), in a phased approach starting from the second quarter of this year,” Anchor Point said in its license announcement, positioning the token as a “secure, accessible and transparent digital currency” for digital markets. According to a statement from the HKMA and the company, each HKDAP token will be backed on a 1:1 basis by high-quality, highly liquid Hong Kong dollar reserves held in segregated accounts in accordance with Hong Kong regulations for Hong Kong dollar-referenced stablecoins.
Evan Au-Yang, group president of Animoca Brands, sees the regulated Hong Kong dollar stablecoin as core financial infrastructure rather than speculative play. “Stablecoins are the bridge between native Web3 and enterprise Web3,” he said in comments cited by Chinese media outlet National Business Daily, arguing that “Hong Kong dollar stablecoins are needed to broadcast mainland assets to the world,” and that such coins are “crucial to Hong Kong’s financial infrastructure” and key to supporting “gaming, trade, and 24/7 financial payments.”
Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Ordinance is one of the most prescriptive frameworks globally, mandating full 1:1 reserve backing, asset segregation, strict liquidity standards, and continuous disclosure of fiat reference tokens offered to the public. The HKMA initially aimed to approve the first HKD-referenced license by March 2026, but it was delayed in April, with officials approving Anchor Point and HSBC as a step towards “a secure tokenized medium of exchange for the digital economy and facilitating cross-border payments and capital flows,” while avoiding the uncertainty plaguing parts of the global stablecoin market with total supply exceeding $300 billion.
The launch of HKDAP comes as regional hubs race to entrench regulated stablecoin activity and tokenized capital flows, with Singapore conducting a pilot and the European Union issuing MiCA-style rules for fiat-backed tokens, a development previously explored in a crypto.news article on stablecoin market growth. In Europe, the European Central Bank now “fully supports” the European Commission’s plan to transfer supervision of systemically important crypto service providers and major exchanges from national authorities to the Paris-based European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), calling the move “an ambitious step towards deeper integration of capital markets and financial market supervision.”
“Direct supervision by ESMA of certain market participants is justified in order to address the risks arising from cross-border activities,” the ECB said, citing a Reuters report on the opinion, arguing that the current patchwork of 27-nation regimes is “inadequate” for an integrated market. At the same time, the central bank warned that ESMA will need “more staff and resources” to police the region’s big crypto companies, as detailed in a recent crypto.news article on ESMA’s expanded powers, and warned that the bill, seen as the biggest structural change since MiCA came into force at the end of 2024, could require months of negotiations between EU governments and lawmakers.
Both Hong Kong’s HKDAP system and Europe’s ESMA aim in the same direction. Rather than leaving stablecoins and systemic crypto platforms on the fringes of the industry, regulators are dragging them into bank-grade central oversight frameworks.
