Standard Chartered said it will distribute Anchorpoint Financial’s Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin HKDAP, becoming the first bank to offer one of Hong Kong’s two regulated stablecoins. The London-based lender said the initial rollout will target eligible institutional clients and partners.

The bank also said it plans to introduce additional commercial uses for HKDAP over the coming month. Those planned applications include fund subscriptions, settlements with asset managers, intragroup transfers across Standard Chartered’s global network, and cross-border payments.

First bank distribution deal

The announcement marks an early step in Hong Kong’s newly regulated stablecoin market, where only two issuer licenses have been granted so far. By taking on distribution of HKDAP, Standard Chartered becomes the first bank to bring one of those licensed products to clients.

Standard Chartered said in an emailed announcement on Monday that it will initially help eligible institutional customers and partners integrate the token into their operations. The bank did not describe a broader retail rollout in the announcement cited in the report.

Anchorpoint’s rollout timeline

Anchorpoint Financial started a limited rollout of HKDAP on Aug. 12, about four months after obtaining one of Hong Kong’s first two stablecoin issuer licenses. At the outset, the company has focused on institutional payments and settlement.

According to the report, Anchorpoint plans to widen access over time by adding more channels and expanding into cross-border applications. Standard Chartered’s planned distribution and use-case development fit within that initial institutional phase.

Planned use cases over the next month

Standard Chartered said it expects to add several HKDAP applications over the next month. The list it gave covers market fund subscriptions, settlement flows involving asset managers, transfers between entities within its own global network, and cross-border payments.

Those examples suggest the bank is positioning the stablecoin first as a tool for treasury, settlement and transaction activity rather than as a consumer payment product. The stated timeline, however, is still a plan, and the bank has not publicly detailed the order or scale of each rollout step.

Broader competitive backdrop

The other holder of an initial Hong Kong stablecoin issuer license is HSBC. The report said HSBC is preparing its own stablecoin for the second half of 2026 and could distribute it through PayMe, a payments app with 3.3 million users.

Elsewhere in the market, Kraken parent Payward has expanded its Hong Kong stablecoin operations through a $600 million agreement to acquire Reap Technologies. Taken together, those developments point to increasing competition around regulated digital-cash infrastructure in Hong Kong, even as the market is still in its early launch phase.

What comes next

The next confirmed step from Standard Chartered is the planned rollout of additional HKDAP use cases over the coming month. For now, the bank’s distribution effort is centered on eligible institutional clients and partners, while Anchorpoint continues its limited launch focused on payments and settlement.

Any broader expansion in access or functionality will depend on the rollout plans already outlined by Anchorpoint and its distribution partners. In the near term, the key milestone will be whether the first announced settlement and cross-border applications move from plan to live deployment.

Source: www.coindesk.com