Visa, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), China Asset Management Co. (ChinaAMC), and Fidelity International have successfully tested a blockchain-based cross-border settlement system powered by Chainlink technology. The pilot was conducted under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's (HKMA) e-HKD initiative, a program exploring the role of digital currencies in modern finance.
The experiment demonstrated the secure, cross-chain transfer of regulated digital assets between ANZ's private DASChain network and the public Ethereum Sepolia testnet. Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) was used to enable messaging and value transfers, while its Automated Compliance Engine handled real-time regulatory checks and identity verification without exposing sensitive personal data on-chain. This setup facilitated atomic settlement, where transactions finalize only when all conditions—such as compliance verification and asset transfer—are met simultaneously, reducing counterparty risk and manual reconciliation.
The pilot also utilized Chainlink's Digital Transfer Agent standard to automate the issuance of tokenized fund units and pulled on-chain Net Asset Value (NAV) data using Chainlink data standards, supporting near real-time settlement for tokenized funds. The involvement of these global institutions underscores the growing institutional interest in tokenized financial infrastructure as a means to upgrade legacy settlement networks, reduce transaction times, and lower operational costs for international payments and asset transfers.
Hong Kong's regulatory sandbox environment, through the HKMA's e-HKD program, allows such large-scale tests of blockchain infrastructure within traditional finance under regulatory supervision, positioning the region as a leading hub for digital finance innovation.
