Standard Chartered Plc Bank Branch in Hong Kong
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Bill Winters CEO standard charteredAs mainstream banks and financial institutions increasingly adopt cryptocurrencies, he told a crowd in Hong Kong on Monday that he foresees a future in which nearly all transactions in the world will take place on a digital blockchain ledger.
“Our belief, and I think it is shared by the Hong Kong leadership, is that eventually almost all transactions will be settled on the blockchain and all money will be digital,” the CEO of a UK-based multinational bank said during a panel discussion at Hong Kong FinTech Week.
“Think about what that means: a complete rewiring of the financial system,” he said, adding that experimentation is needed to determine what that rewiring looks like.
standard chartered The company, which is listed in both London and Hong Kong, has increased its involvement in digital assets in recent years, including through digital asset custody services, trading platforms and tokenized products.
Mr. Winters made the comments while discussing Hong Kong’s role in the global digital asset space, and praised Hong Kong’s leadership in experimentation and regulation, along with Hong Kong’s Treasurer Paul Chan.
Hong Kong has been working to establish itself as a regional cryptocurrency hub through a digital asset licensing scheme and a tokenization pilot involving Standard Chartered.
Tokenized assets are digital representations of real-world assets such as stocks, bonds, and commodities that can be recorded and traded on a blockchain or distributed ledger. Stablecoins pegged to currencies are often cited as early examples of tradable tokenized assets.
Standard Chartered, in partnership with blockchain venture capital firm Animoca Brands and telecom company HKT, plans to issue a stablecoin backed by the Hong Kong dollar under a new regulatory framework introduced by the city in August.
Winters said on Monday that he believes the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin could be an interesting new medium of exchange in international trade in digital terms.
Other global fintech leaders have also made bullish predictions for tokenized assets in recent months.
Robinhood Markets CEO Vlad Tenev said last month that tokenization is a “freight train” that will be introduced in most major markets over the next five years.
Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said in April that it would be possible to tokenize any asset, from stocks to bonds to real estate, and that this would be a “revolution” in investing.
