Ant Group's two sectors compete for stablecoins, and Hong Kong stocks surge

Author: Tang Jun

Ant Group’s two major business units announced their application for stablecoin licenses on the same day.

On the afternoon of June 12, it was reported that Ant Group’s international business unit plans to apply for stablecoin licenses in Singapore and Hong Kong, China.

Affected by this, Hong Kong stocks of Ant concept stocks collectively rose in the afternoon, among which Yunfeng Financial (0376.HK) once rose by more than 98%, Yaocai Securities Finance (1428.HK) rose by more than 14%, and Ali Health (0241.HK) and Ali Pictures (1060.HK) rose by more than 4%.

In response, Ant International replied to Caixin, "We welcome the passage of the Stablecoin Bill by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. We will submit an application as soon as the bill takes effect on August 1 and the relevant channels are opened. We hope to contribute more to Hong Kong's construction of a future international financial center."

After the market closed, Ant Digits announced the launch of its application for a Hong Kong stablecoin license.

According to Bian Zhuoqun, Vice President of Ant Group and President of Ant Digits' Blockchain Business, Ant Digits has started applying for a Hong Kong stablecoin license and has had multiple rounds of communication with regulators. In addition, Ant Digits has listed Hong Kong as its global headquarters this year and has completed a pilot test of the regulatory sandbox in Hong Kong.

In 2024, Ant Group announced the upgrade of its organizational structure. Ant International, OceanBase and Ant Digits established their own boards of directors and faced the market independently. According to Caixin, all three divisions have independent listing plans. Earlier this year, media reported that Ant International was preparing for a listing in Hong Kong.

The two independent business divisions of Ant Group officially announced their entry into the stablecoin market on the same day. What are their respective plans?

Ant International rushes to the stable currency

On June 6, the Hong Kong SAR Government published the "Stable Currency Ordinance (Effective Date) Notice" in the Gazette, specifying the implementation date of the "Stable Currency Ordinance" as August 1, 2025, declaring that this new thing born out of cryptocurrency has obtained legal status in Hong Kong.

Stable currency is a special type of cryptocurrency (CryptoCurrency), which has the advantages of blockchain technology such as decentralization, peer-to-peer, low cost and high efficiency. Unlike cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, stable coins are usually pegged to reference assets such as legal currencies to maintain a relatively stable currency value and serve as a medium for crypto asset transactions.

In 2014, Tether issued the first stablecoin USDT (Tether), marking the birth of stablecoins. In recent years, with the characteristics of stable value, high efficiency and low cost, stablecoins have gradually penetrated into traditional financial fields such as cross-border payments.

In 2024, the transaction volume supported by stablecoins will reach 27.6 trillion US dollars, exceeding the total transaction volume of Visa and MasterCard, and the future application prospects are impressive.

Many interviewees told Caixin that in addition to trading cryptocurrencies, the current largest application scenario of stablecoins is cross-border payments.

Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst in the financial industry at Broadcom Consulting, told Caixin that stablecoins are highly compatible with Ant International's existing businesses, mainly in several key areas: first, cross-border payments and remittances; second, e-commerce, especially when dealing with international transactions; third, asset management. As digital assets gradually become mainstream, stablecoins provide Ant with a new way to open up new markets and services.

Ant International's official website shows that it has four major businesses, namely Alipay+, WorldFirst, Antom and Bettr.

Among them, Alipay+ is a cross-border mobile payment platform; WorldFirst is a cross-border collection and financial service platform, mainly providing cross-border collection and payment services to global small and medium-sized enterprises such as cross-border e-commerce; Antom provides cross-border and local acquiring services for global merchants.

A payment researcher told Caixin that stablecoins are an industry development trend, and it is natural for Ant International to deploy stablecoins.

On June 11, media reported that Deutsche Bank and Ant International announced a strategic partnership to provide more comprehensive payment solutions for companies in Europe and Asia.

The two parties will explore cross-border payment innovations, including tokenized bank deposits, stablecoins, and Ant International's Falcon Time Series Transformer (TST) foreign exchange model to help Ant International and its customers reduce foreign exchange-related costs and risks.

In addition, the two companies will further study the application of stablecoins in global payments, including real-time cross-border fund management, reserve management, and uplink and downlink services for Ant entities.

On June 12, Ant International told Caixin that it is accelerating investment and expanding cooperation in global treasury management, and putting its AI (artificial intelligence), blockchain and stablecoin innovations into real, reliable large-scale applications.

“I think Ant International’s application for a stablecoin license reflects its intention to accelerate and improve its layout in the global treasury management and financial technology services fields. Especially in cross-border payments, e-commerce, asset management and other aspects, stablecoins can be used as an efficient and low-cost settlement tool to improve the efficiency of capital circulation and reduce the risk of exchange rate fluctuations.” Wang Pengbo said, “There have been rumors about Ant International’s listing recently. Although the official has not made a clear statement, it will undoubtedly enhance its business diversity and competitiveness.”

Ant Digits officially announced its entry

On June 12, Ant Digits also announced its entry into the stablecoin license.

Bian Zhuoqun said that stablecoins, as a bridge connecting traditional finance and tokenized assets, have broad market potential. Ant Digital will build digital trading scenarios based on stablecoins from the perspective of industry and technology, and promote the development of new asset categories with technology as the core of the industry.

Stablecoins usually serve as trading currencies for various tokenized (i.e. tokenized) assets on the blockchain, and are therefore also seen as a bridge connecting traditional finance and tokenized assets. According to a previous report by Boston Consulting, the value of tokenized assets is expected to reach 16 trillion US dollars by 2030, accounting for 10% of the global GDP.

Many industry insiders told Caijing that the legal status of stablecoins means that tokenized assets represented by RWA (Real World Assets tokenization) have ushered in development opportunities.

In August 2024, under the guidance of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Ant Digits supported the mainland new energy listed company Longsun Technology to successfully complete the cross-border financing of RWA, that is, to tokenize the income rights of new energy charging pile assets (i.e., tokenization), making them on-chain assets, and selling them to global investors on the blockchain platform for financing.

"Hong Kong legislation gives stablecoins a legal identity, which is equivalent to issuing a "birth permit" for on-chain transactions of Web3." Bian Zhuoqun said in an interview with Caijing that compliant stablecoins will provide legal transaction currencies for on-chain transactions such as RWA, which means that the regulatory authorities have recognized the exploration of related businesses. After obtaining legal status, stablecoins, RWA and other businesses are expected to usher in large-scale development.

"I believe that the combination of our RWA and Hong Kong stablecoin will give birth to a wide range of application scenarios and promote the development and growth of Hong Kong dollar stablecoins." Bian Zhuoqun said.

On the day when Ant Digits announced the launch of the application for a stablecoin license, Bian Zhuoqun said that the core value of stablecoins lies in the expansion of usage scenarios and compliance construction. "Ant Digits, starting from industry and technology, is committed to building digital transaction scenarios based on stablecoins and promoting the development of new asset classes with technology as the core of the industry. At the same time, Ant Digits provides a new incremental market for stablecoin transactions and improves transaction efficiency and liquidity by providing a safe, reliable and compliant infrastructure."

In addition, JD.com has already entered the game.

Recently, Liu Peng, CEO of JD.com's JD CoinChain Technology, said in an interview with Caixin, "It can be foreseen that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is pushing forward the licensing issue in full swing, and we are also cooperating with the regulator to complete the sandbox test. The specific licensing time is still waiting for the regulator's notification."

In 2024, JD CoinChain Technology was selected into the Hong Kong Stablecoin Issuer Sandbox. At present, JD Stablecoin has entered the second phase of sandbox testing. The test scenarios mainly include cross-border payments, investment transactions, retail payments, etc. In the future, it will provide mobile and PC application products for retail and institutions.

(The author is a reporter for Caixin)