British multinational bank Standard Chartered is expanding its involvement with digital assets by becoming an authorized distributor of HKDAP (HKD At Par), a Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Anchorpoint Financial. According to a press release dated August 24, the bank plans to utilize the regulated stablecoin in actual financing activities.
Traditionally, institutional clients such as asset managers, multinational companies, and large corporations have relied on conventional settlement systems. The introduction of HKDAP allows the bank to potentially offer these clients a regulated stablecoin-based mechanism to move and settle Hong Kong dollar-denominated value.
Mary Huen, Chief Executive Officer for Hong Kong and Greater China & North Asia at Standard Chartered, stated that the bank is pleased to be the first bank distributor to provide eligible clients with secure access to the market-first Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin.
Initial Applications and Use Cases
Tokenized money market funds represent one of the initial applications for the bank's entry into the crypto space, enabling investors to subscribe and settle fund units on-chain using digital Hong Kong dollars. Intragroup settlement is another primary use case, allowing multinational companies to transfer tokenized Hong Kong dollar value between subsidiaries 24/7. This capability aims to reduce reliance on traditional bank cut-off times, intermediaries, and lengthy reconciliation processes.
However, the system does not eliminate foreign exchange, regulation, or banking intermediaries in every transaction. Instead, it is designed to streamline money movement and settlement where participating parties and jurisdictions support it.
Dominic Maffei, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Anchorpoint, noted that leveraging the bank's international network and digital asset expertise will help expand commercial and cross-border opportunities with HKDAP, thereby strengthening ecosystem participation.
Stablecoin Market Context
The development coincides with stablecoins recording $6.5 trillion in total transaction volume over a recent 30-day period. Meanwhile, on-chain analytics from CryptoQuant indicated that Bitcoin's Stablecoin Supply Ratio (SSR)—which measures Bitcoin's market capitalization relative to available stablecoin buying power—ranged between 11.2 and 11.6 through most of August before rising to approximately 14.2 following a Bitcoin price rally, reflecting a stronger Bitcoin valuation without a comparable expansion in stablecoin supply.
