Mastercard and Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong (SCBHK) have completed their first live test
Mastercard and Standard Chartered Bank Hong Kong (SCBHK) have completed the first live test of the Mastercard Multi-Token Network (MTN). They ran a proof-of-concept pilot that tokenized carbon credits within the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) FinTech Supervisory Sandbox.
In the project, a customer of SCBHK’s virtual bank, Mox Bank, deposits money into Mox and orders a carbon credit purchase. Mox asked SCBHK to tokenize carbon credit through tokenization service provider Libeara, which was launched at SC Ventures, the investment arm of Standard Chartered. MTN tokenized the deposit, and an atomic swap – a real-time swap done across different pools – of the two tokens was made.
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Mastercard launched the MTN network in June 2023. It was built on Mastercard’s blockchain. Previous trials have been conducted jointly with the Reserve Bank of Australia using the Cabbage Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange using the HKD CBDC. None of these CBDCs are operational. Helena Chen, Managing Director of Mastercard Hong Kong and Macau, said:
“With (…) the HKMA developing Hong Kong as a leading hub for digital assets, Mastercard is fully committed to supporting its efforts to drive fintech innovation and advance the tokenization market in Hong Kong.”
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has reportedly pressured Hong Kong banks, including SCBHK, to provide better service to cryptocurrency exchanges. SCBHK is involved in the HKMA’s Ensemble project, which is currently under development, its e-HKD pilot programme, as well as the multinational mBridge project. The e-HKD pilot project announced the start of its second phase in March.
Beyond this, Standard Chartered has also been involved in projects with SWIFT using CBDC and UK Finance using Regulated Liability Network. In November, SC Ventures established a cryptocurrency fund in the UAE.
HSBC Bank and Chinese conglomerate Ant Group tested token deposit transactions at the HKMA sandbox using Ant Group’s blockchain in November. HSBC also offers ETF trading for Bitcoin and Ethereum futures in Hong Kong.
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