What happened? Hong Kong’s Monetary Authority published its e‑HKD Pilot Programme Phase 2 report with Deloitte, mapping how CBDC and private digital money could work in practice.
The report summarises pilots on tokenised asset settlement, programmable payments and offline e‑HKD trials carried out with industry partners. It found DLT can enable atomic T+0 settlement and improve liquidity, though tokenised deposits may achieve similar benefits with less infrastructure change. The HKMA will focus on wholesale use cases first while continuing to prepare policy and technical groundwork for broader retail readiness by 2026.
Who does this affect? Banks, payment firms, fintechs, asset managers, regulators and other market participants involved in tokenisation and payments in Hong Kong and the region.
Banks and asset managers could see changes to settlement cycles, liquidity needs and counterparty risk management if tokenised settlement becomes common. Payment providers and fintechs may need to adapt to new rails, programmability features and competition from regulated stablecoins or tokenised deposits. Regulators, custodians and cross‑border traders will also be affected as infrastructure, compliance and interoperability requirements evolve.
Why does this matter? Faster settlement and clearer rules around digital money can reshape liquidity, costs and the competitive landscape for capital markets and payments.
T+0 settlement reduces capital tie‑ups and counterparty risk, which can lower financing costs and tighten market spreads. If wholesale e‑HKD or tokenised deposits scale, banks’ funding and treasury models and the pricing of short‑term instruments could shift materially. Hong Kong signaling regulatory support for digital money could attract issuers, institutional flows and infrastructure players, altering liquidity pools and competitive positioning across APAC markets.