What happened
- Specific facts/numbers: HKMA granted stablecoin issuer licences to two entities on 10 April 2026—Anchorpoint Financial Limited and HSBC—and the licences took effect that day; HashKey and OSL both announced on 12 August 2026 that they had joined HKDAP Beta Access as key authorised distributors for what they describe as Hong Kong’s first regulated Hong Kong dollar stablecoin.
- Institutions involved: Anchorpoint Financial Limited, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), HKT, Animoca Brands, HKMA, HashKey Exchange, OSL Group, and HSBC are the main institutions named across the reports and official materials.
- Regulatory/technical context: HKMA said the licences were granted under the Stablecoins Ordinance; Standard Chartered said Anchorpoint is a joint venture of SCBHK, HKT and Animoca Brands; OSL previously disclosed that HKDAP test transfers were completed on Ethereum Mainnet, covering minting, transfer and redemption tied to reserve-asset funding.
- What to watch next: Watch whether Beta Access expands beyond professional investors and whether Anchorpoint, HashKey and OSL publish additional completed use cases in tokenised funds, trade finance or cross-border payments; no broader public-launch timetable was identified in the read materials.
Why it matters
This is an early live test of how a fully licensed HKD stablecoin could move from regulatory approval into exchange distribution, settlement and tokenised-finance use cases in Hong Kong.
HKMA Relevance
Direct: HKMA is the licensing authority for HKDAP’s issuer, and its April 2026 approval under the Stablecoins Ordinance is the regulatory basis for the beta rollout.