Standard Chartered Bank’s Hong Kong arm has successfully completed a pilot which tested cross-border transactions with tokenised carbon assets in partnership with Mastercard.

The trial was completed under the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Fintech Supervisory Sandbox, with the bank describing the move as the latest milestone in driving FinTech innovation and developing the tokenisation market in Hong Kong.

The proof-of-concept pilot (POC) was conducted between Mox Bank, a virtual bank backed by Standard Chartered and Libeara, a tokenisation platform backed by SC Ventures, Standard Chartered’s start-up arm.

The bank said the trial resulted in a transparent, real-time transaction between Standard Chartered and Mox, with the end client receiving access to a tokenised version of their carbon credit, which could be held in a digital wallet or used to offset carbon.

“The tokenisation of real-world assets and the potential use of different forms of tokenised currency is integral to the future of the financial industry,” said Mary Huen, chief executive officer of Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) (SCBHK). “SCBHK is keen to stay at the forefront of tokenisation and drive fintech development in Hong Kong.”

Additionally, Standard Chartered completed a Euro-denominated transfer between Hong Kong and Singapore. The transaction was between Siemens AG and iFast Financial Pte Ltd.

It was completed through Partior, a global unified ledger market infrastructure, which integrates blockchain technology directly into the bank’s payment systems. The move comes after Standard Charter made an investment in the platform in November 2022.

“With the financial landscape and corporate treasury function undergoing rapid transformation, corporate and financial institution clients increasingly require their banking partners to support them in achieving better access, visibility, and control of their working capital, and provide ‘always-on’ availability, liquidity and speed of payment flows,” said Mahesh Kini, global head of cash management at Standard Chartered.

He added: “We understand the real transformation that blockchain-enabled solutions can deliver to the industry and broader ecosystem, and our collaboration with Partior to be the first Euro settlement bank to launch on the network brings us closer to our goal of providing real time, 24/7 flows at scale for corporates and financial institutions, while meeting their treasury needs in a safe and efficient manner.”

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