Standard Chartered has become the first bank to distribute a Hong Kong-regulated stablecoin, offering HKDAP to eligible institutional clients, Wu Blockchain reported. HKDAP is issued by Anchorpoint Financial, a venture in which Standard Chartered is itself a backer alongside Animoca Brands and HKT, making the bank both an investor in the token's issuer and now a distribution channel for the token itself.
The move builds on a rollout that began earlier this month. Anchorpoint started a limited institutional-phase launch of HKDAP on August 12, roughly four months after securing one of Hong Kong's first two stablecoin issuer licenses, according to CoinDesk's coverage of the launch. HashKey Exchange and OSL Group were named as authorized distributors at that stage, with HashKey completing the first mint-and-redeem transaction converting HKDAP into fiat. Standard Chartered's entry adds a licensed bank directly into that distribution chain, alongside the exchange-based channels that carried the token at launch.
What HKDAP Is Built to Do
HKDAP is pegged to the Hong Kong dollar and designed to operate under the city's stablecoin issuer licensing regime, which took effect this year as Hong Kong positioned itself as a regulated alternative to the largely offshore stablecoin market dominated by USDT and USDC. Anchorpoint has said its initial focus is payments, settlement and other commercial applications intended to demonstrate the value of regulated tokenized money, with retail access potentially following by the end of 2026 depending on market conditions.
A Bank, Not Just an Exchange, in the Loop
Institutional and professional investors have so far been able to mint and redeem HKDAP through HashKey and OSL. Adding Standard Chartered means a traditional deposit-taking bank — not just a licensed crypto exchange — now sits inside that pipeline, a distinction that matters for institutional clients who need a bank counterparty for compliance or custody reasons before they'll touch a stablecoin at all.
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Hong Kong currently has only two licensed stablecoin issuers, making HKDAP one of a small handful of tokens regulators have formally sanctioned in the jurisdiction. A major international bank actively distributing one of them is an early signal of how conservative institutions plan to engage with regulated stablecoins now that a licensing framework exists, rather than treating the asset class as strictly exchange-native.
