Standard Chartered, Animoca, and Three Others Join HKMA’s Stablecoin Sandbox as Participants

A day after the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) said it was processing the applications for participation in its stablecoin issuer sandbox it has announced five entities, including Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) and Animoca Brands Ltd.

JINGDONG Coinlink Technology Hong Kong Limited, RD InnoTech Limited and Hong Kong Telecommunications (HKT) Limited are the other three entities.

In Wednesday’s announcement, HKMA also said that it planned to present a bill on fiat-referenced stablecoins to the Legislative Council later this year.

In March, the HKMA started a regulatory sandbox to give potential stablecoin issuers immunity in testing certain operations.

“During the assessment process, these institutions were able to demonstrate genuine interest in developing a stablecoin issuance business in Hong Kong with a reasonable business plan, and that their proposed operations under the sandbox arrangement would be conducted within a limited scope and in a risk-controllable manner,” the announcement said.

At the moment, the participants will not handle the general public’s funds and will not solicit funding from the public or offer any products associated with the sandbox but the HKMA didn’t rule out this could happen at a later stage. It also suggested their could be new participants who join the sandbox in the future.

Read More: Hong Kong to Prepare Stablecoin Legislation as Public Consultation Ends