Hong Kong’s financial regulators announced the next phase of commercial tokenisation, allowing round‑the‑clock secondary trading of two tokenised money‑market funds and extending inter‑bank settlement of tokenised deposits to 24‑hour operation.

Continuous trading of tokenised money‑market funds

According to the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), the October 26 approval authorises secondary market trading of the ChinaAMC HKD Digital Money Market Fund and the ChinaAMC USD Digital Money Market Fund on a licensed virtual‑asset platform. The framework imposes pricing, liquidity and disclosure safeguards and limits participation to eligible retail investors. The move enables investors to buy and sell fund units outside traditional market hours, a step regulators say will be monitored before expanding to other tokenised securities.

Round‑the‑clock interbank settlement via EnsembleTX

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) upgraded its EnsembleTX pilot on November 2, allowing participating banks to settle qualifying tokenised deposit transactions at any hour using tokenised central‑bank money. The HKMA confirmed that 12 banks and 20 industry pioneers are now part of the pilot, which builds on earlier real‑time gross settlement capabilities. Standard Chartered launched a tokenised deposit service for corporate clients on the same day, citing live transactions with ChinaAMC, Finloop and PantherTrade.

Industry seminar underscores commercial focus

A joint SFC‑HKMA seminar held on November 11 gathered roughly 200 financial‑industry professionals, according to both crypto.news and CoinCentral. Speakers highlighted the need to connect tokenised investment products, digital currencies and settlement infrastructure to improve liquidity, treasury management and payments. SFC Executive Director Elisa Ng said Hong Kong is moving beyond experimentation toward commercialisation, while HKMA Executive Director Nelson Chow noted the growing ecosystem of digital financial products as a foundation for further development.

What to watch next

Regulators have indicated plans to extend tokenised settlement trials to stablecoins and government debt, though no timeline has been set. Future seminars are expected to address additional tokenised fund classes and the criteria for expanding 24/7 trading permissions. Market participants will be monitoring transaction volumes and liquidity metrics as the pilot matures.