Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters Backs HKD Stablecoins Push

Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters said on Monday that Hong Kong’s push into tokenized money and stablecoins could lay the foundation for a new era of digital trade settlement.

Speaking at Hong Kong FinTech WeekWinters pointed to ongoing pilots in tokenized deposits and the creation of a stablecoin backed by the Hong Kong dollar as potential breakthroughs for cross-border trade.

“I wouldn’t say we fully understand the digitized nature of those streams yet, but we will,” Winters said. “Having innovations like the tokenization of deposits that are driven in Hong Kong, the establishment of stable currencies of the Hong Kong dollar … it becomes a really interesting currency of exchange, or medium of exchange for international trade.”

He added that Hong Kong’s “pilots of digital assets … as mechanisms for trade around the world … will smooth the evolution into the new international trade order in fully digital terms.”

His remarks it’s been almost a year after Standard Chartered’s Hong Kong unit, Animoca Brands and HKT announced a joint venture to apply for a license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to issue an HKD-backed stablecoin under the city’s new regulatory regime. The trio is among five entities participating in the HKMA’s stablecoin issuer sandbox launched last year.

Earlier todayduring Hong Kong Fintech Week, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), the city’s markets regulator, announced which will allow local licensed exchanges to access global liquidity through shared order books.

The change, detailed in a new circular, allows Hong Kong platforms to integrate global liquidity pools under what the SFC refers to as its ASPIRe roadmap for digital assets.

By allowing “split order books”, the SFC aims to narrow price spreads, enhance market efficiency and improve price discovery, although it has warned of higher operational and settlement risks.

Platforms must maintain pre-financing, delivery versus payment settlement, unified market supervision across jurisdictions, and compensation reserves to protect client assets, the SFC said in its circular.