HSBC puts its RedCoin stablecoin in PayMe for 3.3 million users, but names no blockchain, fee or redemption steps

HSBC RedCoin, the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin issued by HSBC under ticker RCHKD, went live on the PayMe by HSBC app on Friday 23 October 2026, the bank said in a release dated the same day. Over the coming days, the more than 3.3 million people who use PayMe will be able to switch on a stablecoin wallet inside the app and use it to pay friends and more than 100,000 merchants. It is HSBC’s first stablecoin and the first coin to reach the public from one of the two issuers Hong Kong has licensed so far.

The release leaves out what a crypto user checks first. HSBC does not say which blockchain RedCoin runs on, what it costs to send or redeem, how large the reserve is, or whether the coin can leave PayMe for an outside wallet or an exchange. Those gaps matter more than usual here, because fake tokens using HSBC’s name were circulating months before the real one existed.

As launched, RedCoin is closer to a licensed way of moving Hong Kong dollars inside a bank’s payment app than to a token crypto traders can use. HSBC says more is coming before the end of the year, starting with its main banking app and a tokenised money market fund.

What HSBC RedCoin does on PayMe from 23 October

The launch covers two uses. The first is person-to-person payments: a PayMe user sends RedCoin to friends or family through the app. The second is paying merchants directly with the stablecoin, at more than 100,000 shops and businesses that already accept PayMe, according to HSBC.

Timing needs care. HSBC says RedCoin is “available from today” on PayMe, but the wallet itself rolls out “in the coming days”. So on launch day, not every PayMe user can hold or spend the coin yet. The Block, which reported the launch at 04:03 UTC on 23 October, described the same staggered activation.

HSBC is sweetening the start with exclusive PayMe transaction discounts and RewardCash, the points of its loyalty programme. The release does not give the size of the discounts or how long they last.

Before going live, HSBC ran staff pilots with nearly 100 users. They tested what the bank calls the full customer journey, from minting the coin and activating the wallet to live transfers. A hundred testers is a small sample for an app with millions of users, although the payment rails underneath are PayMe’s existing ones.

Maggie Ng, Chief Executive Officer of HSBC in Hong Kong and its head of retail banking and wealth there, framed the launch as part of a broader shift. “Money, assets and information are moving from traditional infrastructure to always-on, data-rich and increasingly programmable digital networks,” she said in the release. John O’Neill, Managing Director for digital assets and currencies, added: “This is only the beginning.”

O’Neill also called the launch “a big step forward for safe and widely available digital assets and currencies in Hong Kong”, and said the bank would expand into “wholesale corporate and institutional use cases”. Neither executive gave a figure for expected take-up.

Licence FRS02, segregated reserves and a 1:1 design

RedCoin is issued by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited under stablecoin issuer licence FRS02, granted by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and effective since 10 April 2026, according to the HKMA register of licensed stablecoin issuers. The release also lists SVF licence SVFB002. That is a stored value facility licence, the kind of licence behind payment wallets such as PayMe, not a second stablecoin licence.

On backing, each coin will be “fully backed at all times” by high-quality, highly liquid segregated assets, according to HSBC’s stablecoin page. The same page says RedCoin is designed to be redeemable 1:1 for Hong Kong dollars. HSBC Digital Assets Custody, the bank’s own custody arm, provides safekeeping for RedCoin.

The bank is not new to tokens in Hong Kong. Its release lists HSBC Orion, a platform for digital bonds aimed at institutions that has handled more than $8.3 billion of issuance worldwide since 2023, and the HSBC Gold Token for retail customers, which had recorded 390,000 trades worth $2.5 billion by the end of August 2026. It also runs a tokenised deposit service for wholesale payments and has taken part in HKMA projects such as the e-HKD+ pilot and Project Ensemble since 2022. HSBC is also one of the three commercial banks that issue Hong Kong’s banknotes, The Block noted.

The release adds that RedCoin meets the financial-crime control standards required by Hong Kong’s Stablecoins Ordinance. In practice, a stablecoin that lives inside a bank’s app, with users already identified when they opened their PayMe account, is easy to keep under anti-money-laundering control. It is also a closed setting by crypto standards.

What HSBC has not disclosed: chain, fees, reserves, limits

Read closely, the release and HSBC’s stablecoin page are silent on most of the technical and financial details. As of 23 October, HSBC had not said publicly:

• which blockchain or network RedCoin is issued on, or the address of its token contract;
• what fees apply once the launch promotions end, including any fee to redeem RedCoin for Hong Kong dollars;
• how a user mints or redeems the coin step by step, and how long a redemption takes;
• the size and composition of the reserve, beyond the description of high-quality liquid assets in segregated accounts;
• any limit on how much a user can hold or send;
• whether RedCoin can be withdrawn to a wallet outside PayMe or listed on an exchange;
• how many coins have been issued so far.

The question of outside wallets is not new. When HSBC named the coin on 30 September, the outlet investinglive noted that the bank had not explained how external wallets would interact with it. Nothing published on 23 October answers that.

The Block’s report on the launch names no blockchain either. For users, the practical reading is simple: until HSBC says otherwise, RedCoin is something you hold and spend through PayMe, not a token you can move around DeFi or between exchanges.

Fake ‘HSBC’ tokens came first, and the HKMA warning still applies

Scammers got ahead of the bank. On 28 April 2026, less than three weeks after the licences were granted, the HKMA warned the public that tokens with the tickers “HKDAP” and “HSBC” had been launched but were not issued by or associated with either licensed issuer. Both licensees confirmed at the time that they had not issued any regulated stablecoin.

The regulator’s advice is short. “When acquiring or using stablecoins, members of the public are reminded to do so only through regulated channels,” the HKMA said. HSBC’s own stablecoin page asks visitors to stay vigilant against fraudulent stablecoins that claim to be issued by or linked to the bank. When Coindaro last read that page, at about 04:45 UTC on 23 October, it still said HSBC had not yet issued any stablecoins in Hong Kong. The page had not been updated for the launch at the time.

The real coin’s ticker is RCHKD. A token called “HSBC”, “RedCoin” or anything similar that is offered on a decentralised exchange or by a stranger online is not the one HSBC launched, as far as anything the bank has published shows. The only channel HSBC has named so far is the PayMe app, with the HSBC HK mobile banking app to follow later in 2026.

Hong Kong’s stablecoin licences: from a 2025 law to two issuers

Hong Kong’s regime is recent. The Stablecoins Bill passed on 21 May 2025 and the Stablecoins Ordinance (Cap. 656) came into force on 1 August 2025, making the issuance of fiat-referenced stablecoins a licensed activity. A few days later, HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue warned of “excessive exuberance” around the sector and said “a large number of applicants will be disappointed”, as finews.asia reported on 5 August 2025.

The first licences came later than first signalled: regulators had pointed to the end of the first quarter, and on 1 April The Block reported that the target had been missed, with 36 applications still under review. On 10 April 2026 the regulator granted the first two: Anchorpoint Financial Limited (FRS01) and HSBC (FRS02). Yue called it “an important milestone for the development of digital assets in Hong Kong”, and the regulator said both licensees intended to launch business “in the coming few months”. The register, last revised on 23 April 2026, still showed only those two names when checked on 23 October.

Anchorpoint’s HKDAP started with institutions, RedCoin with phones

The two licensees took opposite routes. Anchorpoint, a Standard Chartered subsidiary set up as a joint venture with telecom group HKT and Animoca Brands, began a phased rollout of its HKDAP stablecoin on 12 August 2026, The Block reported. That beta was limited to institutional distributors and professional investors, with HashKey Exchange handling the first mint and redemption. In May, OSL Group had run HKDAP transfers on Ethereum mainnet, from funding to redemption. Retail access stayed on the roadmap for late 2026, subject to market conditions, Genfinity reported at the launch.

HSBC went straight to the consumer side, and The Block’s headline presents RedCoin as a rollout to retail users. Among licensed Hong Kong issuers, it appears to be the first to reach the general public, but unlicensed or offshore tokens pegged to the Hong Kong dollar may exist, so “first ever” would overstate it. Standard Chartered, Anchorpoint’s parent, has been building its own crypto business in parallel, as shown by its deal to buy all of Zodia Custody.

A Hong Kong dollar coin in a market built on the US dollar

No reliable figure exists for the supply of Hong Kong dollar stablecoins. Licensed issuance only began in August, for institutions, and on 23 October for retail, and neither issuer has published how many coins are in circulation. Any number quoted elsewhere should be read with that in mind.

Estimates exist. Citi put the size of Hong Kong’s stablecoin market at about $16 billion, give or take $8 billion depending on the scenario, finews.asia reported on 5 August 2025. That figure came before any licence was granted, and it is a scenario estimate, not a count of coins in circulation.

The global picture explains why non-dollar coins are a niche. Arkham Research counted about $2 billion of non-USD stablecoins in circulation on 8 June 2026, against roughly $316 billion for dollar coins such as USDT and USDC. On those figures, the US dollar accounts for more than 99% of the market. A Hong Kong dollar coin, pegged to a currency that is itself tied to the US dollar, enters a segment that is small by any count.

HSBC’s own case rests on use, not supply. In an online survey of 1,060 of its customers aged 18 to 64, run in June 2026, 53% said Hong Kong dollar stablecoins could strengthen the city’s economic competitiveness, the bank said. The same study, first reported on 30 September, found that 74% could name at least one use for a stablecoin, while 26% wrongly believed governments issue them, according to crypto.news. HSBC’s release also says easy access through apps people already use is among the strongest drivers of adoption, which is the bet behind putting RedCoin in PayMe.

What changes for readers in the US and Europe

Directly, nothing. RedCoin is offered through PayMe, an app for Hong Kong users, and HSBC has not said it will be available anywhere else. There is no announced access for American or European users, and no exchange listing.

Indirectly, the launch shows what a bank-run stablecoin looks like once a licence regime is in place. In the United States, the GENIUS Act takes effect on 18 January 2027, and the OCC’s final GENIUS Act rule published on 21 October sets reserve and redemption rules for the issuers it supervises, including 1:1 backing and two-day redemption. US banks are also testing a neighbouring product: SoFi’s tokenized deposit pays interest that a payment stablecoin is not allowed to pay under the US law.

In the European Union, a coin like RedCoin would fall under MiCA’s e-money token rules if it were offered there, which would require an authorised credit institution or e-money institution as issuer. HSBC has not said it plans that. The EU’s review of MiCA, including France’s push on multi-issued stablecoins, is covered in our report on the French MiCA proposals.

How a bank-issued stablecoin differs from USDT and USDC

A stablecoin is a token designed to hold a fixed value against a currency, usually backed by cash and short-term assets. Our beginner’s guide to stablecoins explains the main types. The large ones, USDT from Tether and USDC from Circle, are issued by companies that are not banks and circulate on public blockchains, where anyone with a wallet can hold them.

RedCoin is different on both counts as launched. The issuer is a licensed bank, the reserve sits in segregated accounts under a Hong Kong licence, and the coin is reached through a bank-owned app rather than an open network. That gives users a familiar counterparty. It also means, for now, none of the portability that makes dollar stablecoins useful in crypto trading.

Next: an HSBC app wallet and a money market fund share class before year-end

HSBC says that later in 2026 it will add stablecoin wallet functions to the HSBC HK Mobile Banking App. Customers will then be able to subscribe to tokenised investment products using RedCoin, starting with a soon-to-be-launched share class of HSBC’s Hong Kong dollar money market fund. After that, the bank plans wholesale, corporate and institutional uses, with no date given.

The details to watch are the ones missing today: the chain, the fee schedule, the redemption process and a first published reserve report. Anchorpoint’s retail launch of HKDAP, flagged for as early as the end of 2026, would give Hong Kong a second licensed coin to compare against.