The exercise involved a simulation in which a stablecoin backed by the AUD was converted into a Hong Kong central bank digital currency (CBDC) and subsequently used to purchase a tokenised money market fund.
The test was carried out in collaboration with financial institutions including ANZ, Fidelity International, and ChinaAMC. It connected ANZ’s proprietary blockchain, DASChain, to Ethereum’s public testnet using Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP). The use of this interoperability tool enabled the seamless transfer and conversion of digital assets between private and public blockchain environments.
The stablecoin used in the transaction was A$DC, issued by ANZ, while the digital Hong Kong dollar (e-HKD) facilitated access to the investment product. According to Visa officials, the firm’s Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP) handled the digital money lifecycle, and Chainlink's infrastructure was used to manage the smart contracts necessary for transaction settlement under payment-versus-payment (PvP) and delivery-versus-payment (DvP) mechanisms.
The trial included the application of on-chain identity verification and explored token issuance using both ERC-20 and ERC-3643 standards to assess regulatory compliance and security. Asset managers involved in the project demonstrated how such digital money mechanisms could be applied to streamline the investment process, potentially reducing settlement time from days to seconds. These improvements could support continuous operations outside standard business hours, including weekends and public holidays.
The wider context of the pilot reflects growing institutional interest in tokenised asset markets, which are projected to exceed USD 2 trillion by the end of the decade. HKMA’s ongoing e-HKD+ programme builds on prior research and experiments in programmable money, expanding its scope to include use cases involving tokenised bank deposits and transactions across multiple blockchain types.
Officials from Fidelity and ChinaAMC, both of whom have previously issued tokenised funds, emphasised that programmable digital currencies may reduce back-office complexity and increase access to investment products.
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