<div id="readability-page-1" class="page"><div><p>The much-anticipated issuance of stablecoin issuer licenses in Hong Kong has not been released as scheduled. As early as February 11, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee publicly stated, &#34;The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is actively processing license applications and believes the first batch of stablecoin issuer licenses will be issued next month.&#34; Two weeks later, Financial Secretary Paul Chan made a similar statement. Regarding the failure to fulfill the promise of issuing licenses in March, an HKMA spokesperson responded that the HKMA is making every effort to advance the licensing process and will announce the details in due course. Regarding the anticipated delay in license issuance, Livio Weng, CEO of Newfire Technology, told Barron's Chinese website: &#34;Currently, the first batch of applications covers banks, traditional financial institutions, and Web3 companies, a very wide range. Regulators will inevitably need more time to conduct final compliance calibrations on the transparency of reserve assets, redemption mechanisms, and extreme stress tests to ensure that Hong Kong's stablecoin ecosystem has a complete security foundation from its inception.&#34; Regarding the external factors speculated by outsiders, I tend to understand them as routine communication in global cross-border regulatory collaboration. Since stablecoins inherently possess cross-border liquidity attributes, ensuring that they can both enable compliant trade settlement and strictly prevent the risk of illegal funds requires extremely meticulous end-to-end regulatory design. This integration of technology and regulations itself requires time. Regarding the issuance of licenses, Eddie Yue, Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), has repeatedly lowered expectations, stating that &#34;many (applicants) lack practical application scenarios, lack feasible specific solutions and implementation plans, let alone the awareness and ability to manage risks,&#34; and indicating that &#34;at most, only a few stablecoin licenses will be granted in the initial stage.&#34; Previously released information shows that the HKMA received 36 stablecoin license applications, involving various institutions such as Ant Financial, Ant International, JD CoinChain Technology (Hong Kong), and Lianlian Digital. Earlier, five institutions participated in the initial sandbox testing, including JD.com's JD Coin Chain Technology (Hong Kong), Yuanbi Innovation Technology, and three others: Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), Anni Group, and Hong Kong Telecom (HKT). However, several market participants told Barron's that the first batch of licenses may only be issued to HSBC and Standard Chartered, the two note-issuing banks. An industry insider stated that some internet companies that previously applied for licenses &#34;have already given up their applications in the short term, and some teams have disbanded.&#34; An important background factor is that on February 6, the People's Bank of China, along with eight other ministries, issued a notice explicitly stipulating that without the consent of relevant departments in accordance with laws and regulations, no domestic or foreign entity or individual may issue stablecoins pegged to the RMB overseas. Furthermore, Futu Securities and OSL Group are both considered strong contenders for the second batch of licenses. Barron's China contacted Futu Securities for confirmation, but they stated they would not comment. On March 26, Cheetah Trading, a licensed virtual asset trading platform under Futu Holdings, officially launched operations in Hong Kong. Another piece of information that reveals the mainland's regulatory attitude towards Hong Kong's virtual currencies is that the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange recently updated their lists of companies included in the Hong Kong Stock Connect program, and HashKey and OSL were unexpectedly absent. Shortly before, these two licensed virtual currency exchanges had already been included in the Hang Seng Composite Index. The overall progress of on-chain finance in Hong Kong has not stalled. While the Hong Kong stablecoin license remains unresolved, the pace of development for the digital yuan has clearly accelerated. On December 31, 2025, six major state-owned banks—Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, and Postal Savings Bank of China—collectively announced that starting January 1, 2026, the balance of their digital RMB real-name wallets would accrue interest at the current deposit rate. This marks the first time globally that interest has been paid on central bank digital currencies. Almost simultaneously, the People's Bank of China issued the &#34;Action Plan on Further Strengthening the Management and Service System and Related Financial Infrastructure Construction of Digital RMB,&#34; fully implementing the new generation of digital RMB measurement framework, expanding its positioning from a digital replacement of cash (M0) to cover the M1 and M2 categories. The expansion of operating institutions is also rapid. On April 2, the People's Bank of China officially announced the addition of 12 new banking institutions operating digital RMB business, bringing the total number of digital RMB business operating institutions to 22, covering multiple levels of financial institutions including state-owned banks, joint-stock banks, city commercial banks, and internet banks. In Hong Kong, according to data recently disclosed by Christopher Hui, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, as of the end of January 2026, there were 80,000 digital yuan wallets opened with Hong Kong mobile phone numbers, and the number of local merchants accepting digital yuan surged from approximately 300 initially to approximately 5,200, an increase of more than 16 times in one year. These merchants cover multiple sectors including chain retail stores, hotels, travel agencies, restaurants, convenience stores, and supermarkets. To a certain extent, digital yuan and Hong Kong dollar stablecoins do not constitute direct competition. The latter's main vision lies in embedding itself into on-chain financial infrastructure. DeFi, RWA tokenization, and on-chain settlement all require a fiat currency-pegged asset that can freely circulate on a public blockchain. The digital yuan's architecture, with its two-tiered control system, is inherently unsuitable for this scenario. It is worth noting that the delayed issuance of stablecoin licenses has not significantly halted the overall progress of on-chain finance in Hong Kong. Since the end of last year, tokenized government bonds have been issued in multiple batches and are becoming more regularized; US dollar money market funds have also been tokenized; and there have been substantial moves in the real estate sector, such as Delin Holdings announcing the tokenization of a portion of its equity in core properties in Central, and Taiji Capital converting rental income from Kowloon retail properties into RWA certificates.</p></div></div>

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<p>The issuance of stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong has been delayed, with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) stating that it is still processing applications. Initial expectations were set for March, but the HKMA has indicated that only a few licenses may be granted due to compliance issues among applicants. Major banks like HSBC and Standard Chartered are likely to receive the first licenses, while some internet companies have withdrawn their applications. Meanwhile, the development of the digital yuan is accelerating, with new regulations and interest accrual on digital RMB wallets set to begin in 2026.</p>

- The issuance of stablecoin issuer licenses in Hong Kong has been delayed beyond the anticipated timeline, previously communicated by officials including Chief Executive John Lee.  
- The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is still processing the 36 applications, but challenges regarding compliance and readiness could mean only a few licenses will be granted initially.  
- Despite the delays in stablecoin licensing, the development of on-chain finance in Hong Kong continues to progress, with significant advancements in digital yuan adoption and tokenized financial instruments.

Behind the "breach of contract" for Hong Kong's stablecoin license