What happened
Tokenised settlement between Hong Kong banks now runs around the clock. On November 2 the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (香港金融管理局) said EnsembleTX, the pilot phase of Project Ensemble, now settles interbank tokenised deposit transactions in tokenised central bank money (代币化央行货币) 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When EnsembleTX started in November 2025, those transactions settled through the HKD Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system. The HKMA said the new capability lets banks and other participants settle outside conventional operating hours.
The same day, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui (許正宇) announced the first interbank trade on EnsembleTX that paired tokenised gold with tokenised deposits. Zhaojin Mining (招金礦業) issued the gold token, China Construction Bank (Asia) was custodian and paying bank, and Bank of East Asia, with JETCO (銀聯通寶), received payment. Ant Digital Technologies (螞蟻數科) supplied the tokenisation platform, Anvita TaaS. Each token corresponds to one 400-ounce London Good Delivery bar held in a Hong Kong vault and priced against the Hong Kong gold benchmark (HAU), Wen Wei Po reported. Payment moved as tokenised deposits through the Ensemble interoperability layer to RTGS.
Separately, the Hong Kong Gold Exchange (香港黄金交易所) and China CITIC Bank International (信银国际), its only settlement bank, said they had finished a Project Ensemble pilot that settled gold trades in tokenised deposits, including interbank transfers. Four member firms took part, and settlement took five minutes after the trade, according to Zhitong Finance.
Background and numbers
The HKMA annex lists 12 tokenised deposit banks on EnsembleTX, up from seven. The five that joined in 2026 are Bank of Communications (Hong Kong), China CITIC Bank International, ICBC (Asia), Industrial Bank’s Hong Kong branch and Nanyang Commercial Bank. The other participants, which the HKMA calls industry pioneers, rose from 13 to 20; the 2026 additions include CMU OmniClear, CNPC Finance (HK), HashKey Group and JINGDONG Technology.
On the product side, the Securities and Futures Commission (證監會) has authorised 17 tokenised retail products since 2023, covering money market funds, gold products and ETFs, with US$1.3 billion under management, Elisa Ng, its executive director for investment products, said on November 2. In late October the SFC approved the first tokenised money market funds for secondary trading on licensed platforms.
Other numbers from the week:
- Gold Exchange forecast: trading volume and liquidity up two to three times with faster settlement, and up to ten times for members with refining businesses (Zhitong Finance)
- Blockchain and Digital Asset Pilot Subsidy Scheme 2.0: up to 80% of project cost, capped at HK$500,000, applications close December 31, 2026; the first round drew more than 200 applications (Wen Wei Po)
What it means and what to watch
Ng named two near-term uses for the new rails: secondary trading and corporate treasury management. A company could hold idle cash in a tokenised money market fund and pay for the units in tokenised deposits, cutting the reconciliation steps between bank and fund. She said a tokenised gold ETF may be the next secondary trading pilot, and that the SFC is introducing an “innovation pathway” under which it may grant regulatory flexibility for controlled pilots of tokenised products. She also raised RMB-denominated tokenised money market funds and fund investments in government bills settled in e-CNY as possibilities, subject to cross-border rules.
The HKMA said it will extend EnsembleTX trials to regulated stablecoins, and that recognised dealers have completed a secondary-market pilot trade in tokenised Exchange Fund Bills. Hui said the government aims to send a bill on virtual asset dealing, custody, advisory and management services to the Legislative Council this year.
Dates to watch: CNCBI’s target of a commercial gold settlement service in 2027 running alongside conventional deposits, the first stablecoin leg on EnsembleTX, the SFC’s choice of a gold ETF pilot, and whether the virtual asset bill reaches the Legislative Council by December.
Why it matters: Seven of the 12 tokenised deposit banks belong to mainland banking or financial groups, and mainland firms also supplied the gold, the tokenisation platform and several of the new industry pioneers. Hong Kong now has a physical gold market, a gold benchmark price and tokenised cash on the same settlement network, so Gold Exchange trading volumes after the 2027 launch will be the first hard measure of whether 24/7 settlement changes how institutions trade.
Sources: 香港金融管理局 Hong Kong Monetary Authority, EnsembleTX release and participant annex, November 2, 2026; 香港金融管理局 HKMA, Hong Kong FinTech Week 2026 release, November 2, 2026; 證券及期貨事務監察委員會 Securities and Futures Commission, keynote by Elisa Ng, November 2, 2026; 香港文匯報 Wen Wei Po, November 3, 2026; 智通财经 Zhitong Finance, November 2, 2026; 大公報 Ta Kung Pao, November 3, 2026 (Chinese-language sources, translated)
Image: Wiki.cullin, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
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