The Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation (HKMC) on Thursday priced HK$12bn ($1.53bn) of inaugural digital bonds, which HKMC called the largest such issuance globally to date, and the first by a Hong Kong public sector entity, the issuer said in a statement.
Hong Kong's HKMC Prices Record $1.5bn Digital Bond
12 June 2026 - 04:32 CEST
By Oihyun Kim
The triple-tranche deal under HKMC's $30bn Medium Term Note Programme comprised HK$6bn ($765mn) of two-year notes, HK$2.5bn ($319mn) of five-year notes and CNH 3bn ($442mn) of three-year notes. The five-year Hong Kong dollar tranche set a new benchmark as the longest tenor for an HKD-denominated digital bond.
Three-day settlement cycle
The bonds were digitally created on the Central Moneymarkets Unit (CMU) distributed ledger platform run by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), which also handles clearing and settlement. Investors can access holdings via CMU's existing links to Euroclear and Clearstream. The settlement cycle was shortened to three business days from five.
Demand reached a peak order book of about HK$24bn ($3.06bn) from more than 100 accounts, spanning multilateral development banks, central banks, commercial and private banks, insurers and asset managers. Mainland Chinese institutions participated via Southbound Bond Connect, the cross-border bond-buying channel.
Public sector model extended
Howard Lee, HKMA deputy chief executive and HKMC executive director, said the deal would "accelerate the adoption of tokenisation technology in the fixed income market."
David Yim, head of capital markets for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered and a joint global coordinator, said the transaction "enriched the Hong Kong dollar bond market" and reinforced Hong Kong's role as a digital asset hub.
The deal builds on three Hong Kong government digital green bond issuances since 2023 and on HKMA's Project Ensemble tokenization sandbox.
