Two banks on opposite sides of the Pacific moved tokenized money a step closer to everyday use this week, one with deposits that now settle around the clock and one with loans that would be born on a public blockchain.
Hong Kong goes 24/7. On Monday, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said EnsembleTX, the live pilot phase of its Project Ensemble, now supports interbank settlement of tokenized deposit transactions in tokenized central bank money on a 24/7 basis. Until now, that settlement depended on the operating hours of Hong Kong’s regular interbank payment system. The pilot now has 12 participating banks, including HSBC, Standard Chartered, Bank of China (Hong Kong) and ICBC (Asia), plus 20 other firms the HKMA calls industry pioneers, such as Ant International, BlackRock and China Asset Management (Hong Kong).
“In just two years, Project Ensemble has transitioned from experimentation and piloting to a new phase focused on promoting the commercialisation of tokenisation applications in Hong Kong,” HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue said. The HKMA also said it completed trial secondary-market trades of tokenized Exchange Fund Bills and plans to expand the trials to include regulated stablecoins.
Standard Chartered is first to sell it. The same day, Standard Chartered launched a tokenized deposits service for corporate clients in Hong Kong, the first market in its group to offer it. The bank says eligible clients can move regular bank deposits in real time across participating banks through EnsembleTX, with interbank settlement in central bank money, including wholesale central bank digital currency, around the clock. It named China AMC, Finloop and PantherTrade as having already run live tokenized deposit transactions and settled tokenized money market funds. It is also working with Fireblocks to connect digital asset clients.
A tokenized deposit is not a stablecoin. It is still money a regulated bank owes its customer, recorded and moved on the bank’s blockchain system. Only eligible clients can use it. CoinDesk reported that the bank did not disclose transaction values or how many institutions will have access at first. Standard Chartered says it plans to expand to more markets over time but has given no timeline.
A U.S. bank plans tokenized loans from day one. In New Jersey, Cross River Bank said Tuesday it is working with Offchain, the developer of Arbitrum, to build tokenization into its lending platform. Loans made through the platform could be funded, owned, transferred and serviced on Arbitrum One from the moment they are created, instead of being moved onto a blockchain later. Borrowers would apply and repay through the same apps they use today, with Offchain’s ZeroDev wallet technology running underneath.
Cross River says it stays the regulated bank and lender of record, and that tokenization does not change its underwriting, risk or compliance standards. What changes is how loans can be sold to investors, such as funds that agree in advance to buy a share of new loans as they are made. The two companies say they have finished a proof of concept and are targeting production in early 2027.
Why it matters. Both projects keep the bank in the middle. Hong Kong is fixing the settlement side, so tokenized money can actually clear between banks after hours. Cross River is working on the asset side, so a loan has one shared record from day one. Neither is open to the public, and neither has published volume yet.
What to watch: transaction volumes on EnsembleTX, which markets Standard Chartered adds next, when stablecoins join the HKMA’s trials, and whether Cross River’s first tokenized loans reach investors on schedule in 2027.
Sources: HKMA, Standard Chartered, CoinDesk, Cross River.