Standard Chartered Lets Hong Kong Firms Move Bank Deposits 24/7

Banks close at night. Standard Chartered's corporate clients in Hong Kong can now move money 24 hours a day anyway.

The bank launched tokenised deposits on Monday, making Hong Kong the first market in the group to offer the service to companies. It said it plans to expand to more markets over time.

The launch came the same day the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the city's central bank, said its Ensemble TX pilot can now settle tokenised deposit trades between banks 24 hours a day in tokenised central bank money. The pilot now counts 12 participating banks and 20 other firms, the HKMA said. Five banks joined this year, according to its list.

How does it work? A tokenised deposit is ordinary money in a regulated bank account, recorded as a digital token on a blockchain. When a client sends it to a customer of another bank, the token moves at once. Behind the scenes, the two banks settle what they owe each other in central bank money, the safest form of money in the system. Until now, that bank-to-bank step mostly waited for business hours. That is different from a stablecoin, which is a token issued by a private company and backed by reserves it holds.

Standard Chartered said China AMC, Finloop and PantherTrade have already run live tokenised deposit transactions, including settling tokenised money market funds. Fireblocks, a digital asset custody firm, is connecting the service to crypto clients, and Hashkey has joined, the bank said. It did not disclose transaction values, Global Custodian and other outlets noted.

The move follows HSBC's Hong Kong dollar stablecoin push last month, giving the city two big banks testing different ways to put money on-chain.

In our opinion: Banks are making their case that companies don't need a stablecoin to get money that moves at midnight, because the bank deposit itself can do it. The missing piece is size, since no transaction values were shared. Watch whether the HKMA or the bank publishes volumes, which would show if treasurers actually use the night shift.