Hong Kong pilot opens 24/7 cash settlement for tokenized fund deals
Hong Kong's banks can now settle tokenized deposit transactions at any hour, in central bank money, after the Hong Kong Monetary Authority extended interbank cash settlement beyond conventional operating hours on Nov. 2.
The upgrade sits inside EnsembleTX, the real-value pilot phase of Project Ensemble, which now counts 12 participating banks and 20 industry pioneers. The architecture separates two things that are easy to confuse: firms transact in tokenized deposits issued by commercial banks, while tokenized central bank money settles the transactions between those banks. It is that interbank leg which now runs around the clock.
Participants have already put bank-issued tokenized deposits to work in corporate treasury management and tokenized money market fund transactions, with the HKMA naming Ant International, BlackRock and China Asset Management (Hong Kong) among the firms involved. Banks cited as supplying tokenized deposits for that activity include Bank of China (Hong Kong), China Construction Bank (Asia), ICBC (Asia), Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) and HSBC — examples the HKMA gave, not the full roster of 12.
For a corporate treasury in the pilot, the practical difference is that its bank can settle the relevant transactions outside normal hours. Tokenized-fund users gain extended cash-settlement availability where their banks and platforms support it. Julia Leung, chief executive of the Securities and Futures Commission, said the capability supports round-the-clock corporate treasury transactions and secondary trading of tokenized funds on licensed platforms — though availability for any individual fund still depends on bank and platform arrangements, and continuous interbank settlement does not by itself create continuous trading.
EnsembleTX launched in November 2025 as a controlled environment for real-value transactions in tokenized deposits and digital assets, initially on the Hong Kong dollar Real Time Gross Settlement system, with round-the-clock settlement in tokenized central bank money envisaged as a later step. The HKMA also reported completed trial trades in which recognised dealers conducted secondary-market transactions in tokenized Exchange Fund Bills, and said it would soon widen trials to regulated stablecoins.
