HSBC rolls out RedCoin to more than 3.3 million users
Key Facts
HSBC announced the launch of its first stablecoin, RedCoin, through its PayMe payments app in Hong Kong on 23 October 2026. The bank said in its launch statement that wallet activation would become available gradually within the app over the following days to a user base of more than 3.3 million. The coin carries the ticker RCHKD, with initial uses including instant transfers between individuals and payments for purchases through the app. The acceptance network for these payments includes more than 100,000 merchants, according to the bank, linking the rollout to an existing payments service for individuals and merchants. HSBC's digital asset custody unit provides custody services for RedCoin.
RedCoin is designed to be redeemable for Hong Kong dollars at a ratio of 1:1, according to HSBC's official product page. In its statement on obtaining an issuance licence, the bank pledged that its stablecoins would be "fully backed at all times by high-quality, liquid assets held in segregated accounts". Before the launch, respondents to a survey conducted by the bank linked their confidence in stablecoins to fraud protection, ease of conversion into cash and reserve transparency. Fraud protection led these factors, selected by 53% of respondents, according to results published by the bank. Seamless conversion into cash followed at 51%, placing the ability to convert back into cash among respondents' leading priorities. Reserve transparency was selected by 39%, alongside the security and conversion factors that topped the survey results.
The rollout comes under Hong Kong's regulatory regime for stablecoin issuers, which took effect on 1 August 2025, according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Under the regime, issuing fiat-referenced stablecoins became a regulated activity requiring a licence. The official register shows that the licence for RedCoin's issuing entity, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, took effect on 10 April 2026. The monetary authority said it granted the first two licences to HSBC and Anchorpoint from among 36 applications received. The authority identified conditional payments and supply chain financing among the uses enabled by stablecoin programmability. It plans to monitor issuers after launch through on-site examinations, off-site reviews and independent assessments as part of its oversight of issuance activity.
Meanwhile, Anchorpoint's competing stablecoin, HKDAP, remains in its pilot access phase, according to the company's transparency page. This phase allows selected authorised distributors and their institutional and corporate clients to transact within the scope of access set by Anchorpoint. The coin operates on public blockchains, while its reserve assets are held in a trust structure legally separate from the company's assets and operating accounts. During the pilot phase, Anchorpoint provides weekly data and reports and is already publishing unaudited statements of reserve asset holdings. Holding the coin in a user's own wallet depends on whether the service provider permits withdrawals, according to the company's published frequently asked questions. This requires verification of wallet ownership and whitelisting of its address, the procedures Anchorpoint has set for transferring the coin to those wallets.
Later in 2026, HSBC plans to add the stablecoin wallet to its Hong Kong banking app, according to the RedCoin launch statement. During the same period, the bank plans to allow the coin to be used to subscribe to tokenised investment products, extending its use beyond transfers and merchant payments. The planned products include a new unit class for the bank's existing Hong Kong dollar-denominated money market fund. John O'Neill, the bank's head of digital assets and currencies, said the planned expansion includes "corporate and institutional use cases". These plans place tokenised investment and institutional transactions among the next areas of expansion for the coin, whose rollout began through a retail payments app.