HSBC has gone live with cross-border tokenised deposits, aiming to give corporate clients faster, always-on settlement between markets.

The bank completed its first US dollar transfer between Hong Kong and Singapore in September with Ant International as its pioneer customer.

The service builds on HSBC’s earlier rollout for domestic payments in Hong Kong and Singapore and has now been extended to the UK and Luxembourg.

It supports additional currencies including the British pound, the euro and the US dollar, with plans to introduce the service to more of the bank’s markets.

Using HSBC’s distributed ledger technology, traditional deposits are represented by digital tokens, allowing instant movements directly from corporate systems.

By removing cut-off times and time-zone barriers, the service is designed to improve treasury operations and cash flow management.

HSBC said the service will support programmability such as conditional payments and settlement of tokenised assets with atomic settlement for greater efficiency.

The bank added that the expansion builds on integrations with clients’ enterprise DLT systems in the US, Singapore and Hong Kong, enabling payment initiation from corporate platforms.

Manish Kohli, Head of Global Payments Solutions at HSBC said,

“Tokenised deposits represent a major step forward in the future of transaction banking and open new opportunities for our clients.

By combining real-time liquidity with programmability and secure settlement through blockchain, we can help clients better manage their liquidity, streamline their operations and future-proof their treasury functions in a rapidly evolving financial landscape with the benefits of emerging forms of digital money and its associated technology.”

Kelvin Li, General Manager of Platform Tech at Ant International said,

“This milestone marks the next step in our joint innovation with HSBC on tokenised deposits.

We believe tokenisation is key to enabling more efficient, cost-effective and trusted global transactions, and we will continue working with HSBC to make cross-border payments seamless for businesses of all sizes.”

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by Frolopiaton Palm via Freepik