Over 40 Firms Prepping for Hong Kong Stablecoin License Applications: Report
The number of approved applications is expected to be small, according to reports from China media.
Jul 8, 2025, 10:36 a.m.
Hong Kong’s stablecoin licensing regime, set to begin on August 1, is drawing significant interest from the region’s financial and tech heavyweights, with local media in China reporting that over 40 applications have been received.
But expectations are being tempered by the reality that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is likely to approve only a single-digit number of licenses, according to reports, making this one of the most competitive regulatory races in the city’s digital finance history.
Despite the rush of interest, only three firms have been admitted to the HKMA’s stablecoin sandbox so far, including a joint venture between Standard Chartered and Animoca Brands.
According to an HKMA fact sheet, the sandbox was created to allow companies with a genuine and well-developed plan for issuing fiat-referenced stablecoins to engage with regulators, refine compliance models, and offer feedback on proposed rules.
Admission is not an endorsement or guarantee of licensing and sandbox participants will still need to apply formally once the full regime is live. However, the limited number of firms accepted into this testing phase offers an early look at how narrow the approval funnel may be.
Most of the firms preparing to apply are among China’s largest banks, payment processors, and internet companies, according to reports.
Standard Chartered’s joint venture, JD.com’s blockchain division, and Ant Group’s digital finance units are all expected to be contenders, with Standard Chartered and JD already sandbox participants.
The HKMA’s cautious approach seems to be consistent with how the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has handled virtual asset platforms, granting just 11 licenses so far.
During the SFC licensing process for virtual asset platforms, a number of high-profile contenders withdrew their applications, and reports at the time indicated that the regulator discovered “unsatisfactory practices” at some exchanges.
Read more: Hong Kong Sets Out Plan to Regulate Crypto, Encourage Tokenization
Sam Reynolds
Sam Reynolds is a senior reporter based in Asia. Sam was part of the CoinDesk team that won the 2023 Gerald Loeb award in the breaking news category for coverage of FTX’s collapse. Prior to CoinDesk, he was a reporter with Blockworks and a semiconductor analyst with IDC.
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Wall Street Joins Consumer Advocates to Call for Edit to GENIUS Act on Stablecoins
U.S. bankers are pushing hard for revisions of the new stablecoin law even before regulators have begun the first steps of writing the rules.
What to know:
- U.S. banking groups are petitioning lawmakers to make changes to the stablecoin law known as the GENIUS Act, and consumer groups joined them for one of the requests — aligning associations that are typically on opposite sides of policy issues.
- In one letter, bank lobbyists and the consumer groups asked to cut a provision in the law that could allow state-chartered uninsured depository institutions a business advantage against rivals, and in another, the bankers ask that stablecoin affiliates be stopped from offering yield.
- The lobbyists are asking that future crypto market structure legislation be used to overhaul the new stablecoin law.