Hong Kong has committed to piloting the tokenization of Exchange Fund Bills by the end of 2026 and will allow regulated stablecoins to trade on licensed virtual-asset trading platforms, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui announced at a press conference following the 2026 Policy Address.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority will test tokenisation of more than $1.3 trillion worth of outstanding Exchange Fund Bills, with the stated goal of enabling round-the-clock, efficient asset-and-liability management for banks. The tests are designed to improve how banks handle liquidity, allowing tokenized bills to settle outside traditional market hours.
CMU OmniClear will establish a digital asset platform within the year to provide one-stop services including digital bond issuance and settlement. The initiative sits alongside plans for CBDC settlement and 24/7 operations under the EnsembleTX platform around the same year-end window. Hong Kong’s Policy Address noted that digital bonds issued in the city accounted for nearly 50% of the global market between 2025 and the first half of 2026.
On stablecoins, the government will promote trading of regulated stablecoins on licensed platforms and encourage their use to settle tokenized money-market funds. The framework is explicitly bounded to regulated stablecoins and licensed venues, preserving the supervisory perimeter maintained by the Securities and Futures Commission. The SFC is set to begin digital-asset custody surveillance in the second half of 2026, with CrypTech market-surveillance and anti-money-laundering modules activating in 2027.
Private-sector work is already underway: UBS and Chainlink have been automating tokenized fund operations in Hong Kong, and the policy address signals that regulation will catch up to those pilots. While the bill tokenization targets the wholesale interbank layer, stablecoin settlement targets the asset-management layer, where fund managers need programmable cash equivalents. As institutional infrastructure matures, the marginal cost of integrating Bitcoin into institutional portfolios falls. Bitcoin traded around $81,744, up 0.72% over 24 hours, with the Crypto Fear and Greed Index at 70 in Greed territory.
