HSBC's RedCoin stablecoin hits 50,000 users in first week

HSBC's Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin RedCoin (RCHKD) — the first retail stablecoin launched under Hong Kong's Stablecoins Ordinance — reached 50,000 users within its first week, with HK$87.75 million in circulation, after rolling out to the 3.3 million users of its PayMe app starting Oct. 23. Users can activate a stablecoin wallet in the app to send money and pay at 100,000+ merchants; the token is fully backed by high-quality liquid assets and not listed on crypto exchanges.

• The rollout follows the HKMA granting its first stablecoin issuer licenses in April to HSBC and Standard Chartered-led Anchorpoint, whose HKDAP token began a limited institutional rollout in August.
• HSBC plans to expand RedCoin beyond PayMe to tokenized investment products, including a new share class of its Hong Kong dollar money market fund, before moving into wholesale and institutional use cases.

The launch brings a systemically important global bank into everyday stablecoin distribution as Hong Kong pushes to position itself as a digital-asset hub.