Ant International Partners with HSBC to Launch Hong Kong’s First Bank-Led Tokenised Deposit Service

Ant International today announced a strategic collaboration with HSBC to launch the bank’s new Tokenised Deposit Service in Hong Kong. This innovative service supports real-time, always-on HKD and USD payments between corporate wallets held by HSBC’s corporate clients, enabling seamless treasury management on a secure distributed ledger. It marks the first bank-led, blockchain-based settlement service in Hong Kong.

The launch follows a successful pilot test conducted on Ant International’s Whale platform, which has been driving blockchain-based payments and tokenised deposits solutions with multiple banking partners. Building on insights gained from the pilot, HSBC integrated these learnings into its Tokenised Deposit Service, with Ant International becoming the pioneer client. Ant International completed the first instant intra-group fund transfer using the service by digitising its USD deposits into digital tokens via the Whale platform.

The Whale platform, developed by Ant International’s Platform Tech team under its Embedded Finance business, is a next-generation treasury management solution. It leverages blockchain technology alongside advanced encryption and AI to improve efficiency and transparency in real-time global treasury management. In 2024, over one-third of Ant International’s transactions were processed on-chain through this platform.

Supporting a wide range of tokenised assets from global banks and institutions, the Whale platform facilitates interoperability across diverse blockchain networks. Employing cutting-edge DLT technologies such as homomorphic encryption and zero-knowledge proofs, it ensures transaction information is encrypted and enables secure multi-party verification in a confidential manner, allowing seamless cross-chain transactions.

This collaboration extends a longstanding partnership between Ant International and HSBC that began in 2020. Notably, in October 2024, the two companies successfully completed an HKD-denominated cross-bank experiment under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Ensemble Sandbox.

Kelvin Li, General Manager of Platform Tech at Ant International, said:
“We are very excited to work with an industry leader like HSBC, who shares the belief that tokenisation is the key to bridging the stability of traditional banking with the efficiency of blockchain, to enable real-time treasury management. As a tech connector in the fast-evolving financial services industry, our banking partnerships are expanding from tokenisation to AI-driven global FX and liquidity initiatives. We look forward to collaborating with more public and private-sector partners to unlock more transparent, accessible, and efficient treasury management solutions for businesses worldwide.”