The HKMA received 36 first-batch issuer applications for a HKMA stablecoin license under the Stablecoins Ordinance. It awarded two. Anchorpoint Financial Limited, a joint venture of Standard Chartered Hong Kong, HKT, and Animoca Brands, received FRS01. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation received FRS02. Both are required to issue HKD-referenced stablecoins. Both operate inside the HKMA’s existing supervisory framework for authorized institutions. The register is two names long.
The crypto industry read on this has been frustration. The argument runs: 36 applicants, two licensees, both HKD-bound in a market where 95% of global stablecoin volume is USD-denominated, no path to dollar-pegged issuance, no path for crypto-native applicants. That read is correct on the facts. It is wrong on the framing.
The HKMA’s position, articulated by Chief Executive Eddie Yue in his April 10 inSight column, is that a regulated stablecoin in Hong Kong is a payment instrument inside the local banking perimeter. The licensees were not chosen to compete with USDT and USDC in global crypto markets. They were chosen to issue HKD-pegged tokens that can integrate with retail and corporate payments inside Hong Kong, with reserves at HKMA-supervised banks, with redemption mediated by HKMA-supervised entities, and with anti-money-laundering oversight matching the standard for authorized institutions.
That description rules out almost the entire first-batch applicant pool. Crypto-native issuers without a Hong Kong banking nexus are not going to clear the supervisory bar. Dollar-pegged offshore issuers are excluded by the HKD-only design of the licensee mandate. Smaller HKD applicants get squeezed out by the capital and risk-management requirements that favor incumbent banks. Of the 36, only the bank-led or bank-adjacent applicants were ever going to win.
The two licensees confirm the model. HSBC plans an HKD-denominated stablecoin to launch in the second half of 2026, integrated into its existing PayMe wallet and corporate banking flows. Anchorpoint is targeting phased issuance starting in Q2 2026 with use cases in cross-border B2B settlement and tokenized asset distribution through HKT’s mobile reach and Animoca’s Web3 product surface. Both projects are payment infrastructure, not crypto products.
That is what the HKMA wanted. The point of the first batch is to signal scope. The market understood the signal. The second batch of applicants is reportedly smaller and more targeted, with HKD-pegged designs and bank partnerships already in place before submission. The drop-out rate from the first cohort is not the HKMA’s problem. It is the HKMA’s design.
The strategic implication for Hong Kong as a regional hub is mixed. Hong Kong is not going to produce a globally competitive stablecoin issuer under this regime. It will produce HKD payment infrastructure that integrates with Greater Bay Area cross-border flows and possibly with mainland tokenized deposit work. That is a smaller ambition than crypto market commentators expected. It is closer to what HKMA leadership has consistently said the goal was.
For applicants thinking about the third batch: read the FRS01 and FRS02 issuer profiles, study the reserve and redemption requirements, and understand that the HKMA’s question is not whether a stablecoin product is innovative. The question is whether the product fits inside the supervisory perimeter the HKMA has already drawn. If the answer is no, the license will not arrive.
The shortlist also tells you how the HKMA expects the market to evolve after licensing. It is not trying to maximize the number of issuers. It is trying to establish a tightly supervised template that can be copied by a small number of bank-linked entrants over time. That reduces innovation at the edge, but it also reduces redemption risk, governance ambiguity, and the chance that Hong Kong imports the offshore stablecoin failures regulators have spent the last three years trying to ring-fence. In that sense, the narrow first batch is not a temporary bottleneck. It is the policy objective made visible.