Standard Chartered becomes first bank distributor of HKDAP stablecoin – Details

Standard Chartered, a British multinational bank, is moving beyond simply supporting stablecoins.

According to a press release dated the 24th of August, the bank is preparing to use a regulated Hong Kong dollar stablecoin in actual financing activities.

With this recent move, the bank has become an authorized distributor of HKDAP (HKD At Par), a Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Anchorpoint Financial.

Up until now, institutional clients such as asset managers, multinational companies, and large corporations normally used traditional settlement systems.

However, with HKDAP, the bank can potentially offer them a regulated stablecoin-based mechanism for moving and settling Hong Kong dollar-denominated value.

Remarking on the same, Mary Huen, Chief Executive Officer, Hong Kong and Greater China & North Asia, Standard Chartered, said,

Standard Chartered is pleased to be the first bank distributor to provide eligible clients with secure access to the market-first Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin.

Standard Chartered bets strong on crypto

Now as Standard Chartered steps into the crypto world, tokenized money market funds are one of the first applications. This would allow investors to subscribe and settle fund units on-chain using digital Hong Kong dollars.

In this, intragroup settlement is another major use case.

Multinational companies could use HKDAP to transfer tokenized Hong Kong dollar value between subsidiaries 24/7, reducing reliance on bank cut-off times, intermediaries, and lengthy reconciliation.

However, this does not mean HKDAP would not eliminate foreign exchange, regulation, or banking intermediaries in every transaction. Instead, it could streamline money movement and settlement where participating parties and jurisdictions support it.

Adding more weight to the matter, Dominic Maffei, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Anchorpoint, added,

Leveraging the bank’s international network and digital asset expertise will help expand commercial and cross-border opportunities with HKDAP, strengthening the ecosystem participation needed for the next phase of digital asset innovation.

The stablecoin market looks healthy, but concerns remain

This coincided with Bitcoin’s Stablecoin Supply Ratio (SSR) trading at stable levels, which broadly measures Bitcoin’s [BTC] market cap relative to the supply of stablecoins available to potentially buy it.

According to CryptoQuant’s data, in August the SSR was around 11.2–11.6 through most of the month but then surged dramatically to about 14.2 recently, after Bitcoin’s price rally.

This divergence means the market is seeing a stronger Bitcoin valuation without a comparable expansion in stablecoin buying power. However, with stablecoins recording $6.5 trillion in total transaction volume in the past 30 days, the stablecoin market is going strong.

Final Summary

• Standard Chartered is also to bring tokenized money market funds as one of the first applications.
• However, HKDAP would not eliminate foreign exchange, regulation, or banking intermediaries in every transaction.