The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is broadening its efforts in the digital currency space by partnering with both the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) on separate cross-border tokenisation projects.
These collaborations aim to test how central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and other tokenised assets can enhance international transactions and support financial innovation.
With Brazil, HKMA will link its Ensemble Sandbox with BCB’s Drex platform to explore payment-versus-payment (PvP) and delivery-versus-payment (DvP) settlement use cases in areas like trade finance and carbon credits.
This partnership builds on a 2018 cooperation agreement between HKMA and BCB to foster innovation in financial services, advancing recent digital finance initiatives.
The HKMA launched the Ensemble Sandbox in August, creating a space to experiment with tokenisation across fixed income, investment funds, liquidity management, green and sustainable finance, and trade and supply chain finance.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s Drex platform, currently in its second phase with 13 themes and backed by over 70 companies, focuses on establishing a robust tokenised financial market.
Eddie Yue, Chief Executive of the HKMA, said,
“The seed of the collaboration between the HKMA and the BCB, planted a few years ago, has now blossomed. Project Ensemble is all about collaboration with industry partners to advance the tokenisation market.
In this regard, the BCB is an excellent partner, especially as we share a common vision of driving the future of the financial industry through technology. We are both taking concrete steps to turn this vision into reality.”
Alongside this, the HKMA and BOT are expanding their 2019 partnership to explore PvP and DvP tokenisation cases through Project Ensemble and Thailand’s Project San.
The proof-of-concept phase will focus on linking distributed ledger-based financial infrastructures (DLT FMIs), drawing from BOT’s Project San—an internal initiative started in June to prototype a tokenisation ecosystem with features like wholesale settlement engines and EVM-compatible ledgers supporting tokenised private money and assets.
This latest collaboration builds on previous projects between HKMA and BOT, including Project Inthanon-LionRock and Project mBridge, aimed at integrating cross-border digital finance initiatives across the two jurisdictions.
Howard Lee, Deputy Chief Executive of the HKMA, said,
“The HKMA and the BOT share the same vision for the potential of cross-border applications using central bank digital currency.
Expanding our partnership to explore cross-border tokenisation use cases further underscores this shared vision. Same as our previous projects, I am confident that this collaboration will yield valuable insights for both jurisdictions.”
Featured image credit: Edited from Freepik
