Hong Kong FinTech Week is not just about crypto; it is a key window to observe how emerging technologies are reshaping traditional finance.

Written by Joe Zhou, Foresight News

The 11th edition of Hong Kong FinTech Week officially kicked off on November 2.

I debated for a long time whether to attend, but ultimately decided to go on-site. The reason is simple: I am increasingly curious about what the financial giants that control the bulk of global financial resources are actually doing, as crypto begins to integrate into the traditional financial system.

If attending TOKEN2049 in Singapore lets you observe the industry from a crypto-native perspective, Hong Kong FinTech Week offers a vantage point to view "financial innovation" through the lens of large, established financial groups.

I am eager to understand how these financial giants that hold massive global financial resources conceptualize the next wave of financial innovation.

This year, Hong Kong FinTech Week is expected to gather over 1,000 speakers, 800 exhibitors, and startups. Behind this scale lies a fintech ecosystem well worth observing.

From my perspective, Hong Kong FinTech Week has several distinct traits: it hosts both a large contingent of Hong Kong-based financial institutions and a wide range of global financial conglomerates. Unlike crypto-native industry events, it functions more as a stage for the traditional financial system to showcase innovation outcomes and align on future directions.

Standard Chartered, HSBC, Ant Group, Tencent, BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Visa, Swift — spanning global banks, asset management giants, international payment networks, and core financial infrastructure — all these institutions will take part in this year’s Hong Kong FinTech Week.

They will bring not just industry insights, but also their latest explorations across AI, blockchain, tokenized assets, cross-border payments, and other key areas.

I am especially curious about several questions: How far have global financial giants like BlackRock and Standard Chartered progressed in their crypto-focused strategic layouts? How have global financial infrastructure players like Visa, Mastercard, and Swift reshaped the connectivity between crypto and traditional payment networks over the past year, and how will they further impact crypto-era payments, settlement, and capital flows going forward? And for crypto-native players that have operated in the space for years, such as HashKey and Solana, can they break further into the core business flows of the traditional financial system?

Being on-site, I will be able to hear first-hand about these giants’ business plans for the next 1-2 years, and see which innovations they are driving toward real-world deployment. How much of the future have they already turned into reality?

Futu Group: Hong Kong’s Standard-Bearer for Crypto Innovation

One of the companies I am most eager to connect with at Hong Kong FinTech Week is Futu Group.

When it comes to the most notable fintech companies in the second half of 2026, Robinhood is definitely at the top of the list. As the largest online brokerage in the U.S., it has made broad, cross-sector progress across crypto business lines this year: prediction markets, its native public chain Robinhood Chain, tokenized equities, pre-IPO trading, and crypto transactions. Robinhood has delivered tangible results across all these business verticals.

Robinhood is no longer content to be just a brokerage for trading U.S. stocks. It aims to become the largest crypto platform in the U.S., where users across the country and around the world can trade crypto, prediction contracts, tokenized equities, and even memes on its platform. And it is already executing on this vision.

Futu, in many ways, can be viewed as the Robinhood of the Chinese-speaking market, and even the broader Asian region.

Masayoshi Son once proposed the "Time Machine Theory": technologies and business models first validated in the U.S. typically roll out to other markets in subsequent years. Hong Kong serves as an ideal observation window: by tracking developments in Hong Kong’s financial sector, we can see how U.S. financial innovations are localized, evolved, and scaled as they enter new markets and move to the next stage of development.

Futu is a particularly interesting case study to track.

On one hand, it already commands a massive traditional securities user base. As of the end of Q2 2026, the Futu platform had approximately 31.25 million registered users and 3.84 million funded accounts. For a legacy online brokerage, this represents an enormous user and asset acquisition funnel.

On the other hand, it is accelerating its entry into the crypto space. PantherTrade, Futu’s licensed virtual asset trading platform, has launched full operations and is integrating its service with Futu Securities. According to official announcements dated October 26, 2026, PantherTrade partnered with ChinaAMC (Hong Kong) to launch Hong Kong’s first batch of tokenized public funds eligible for 24/7 secondary market trading for retail investors.

How many of these existing users can be converted to crypto users? What share will choose to purchase RWA products, or BTC ETF products? These are all critical metrics that may give us an early glimpse of future trends in Hong Kong’s crypto innovation ecosystem.

Visa and Mastercard: The Backend Powerhouse Behind the Ubiquity of Stablecoin-Linked Crypto Cards

The CEO of a stablecoin issuer once told me: "Across the entire stablecoin card value chain, Visa and Mastercard are unequivocally the biggest beneficiaries."

This observation struck me as particularly thought-provoking. Stablecoin cards are an entirely new business vertical spawned by the crypto industry, with an initial core user base of crypto-native customers. Yet the players positioned to capture the largest share of value across the value chain are the two traditional financial giants, Visa and Mastercard.

If you regularly use stablecoins, you will have noticed that a growing number of crypto companies now issue stablecoin-linked debit cards. Whether it is RedotPay, Bitget Wallet, OKX, Binance, or other crypto wallets and trading platforms, users can use these cards to spend stablecoins like USDT and USDC for everyday purchases.

But there is a critical question worth examining: none of these crypto companies have built their own global merchant payment network, so why can the cards they issue be accepted at millions of merchants worldwide?

The answer points overwhelmingly to Visa and Mastercard.

As the world’s two largest bank card payment networks, Visa and Mastercard act as the core infrastructure connecting card issuers, acquirers, and merchants. Crypto companies are responsible for providing wallets, stablecoin balances, and user-facing services; partner banks and licensed issuers handle card production and fund settlement; while Visa and Mastercard provide the global payment network that allows these cards to integrate into the traditional commercial ecosystem.

Put simply, when a user swipes their card, the transaction does not always involve a direct on-chain transfer. A user’s stablecoin balance is typically deducted or converted to fiat currency during the payment process, with the transaction then settled over the bank card network, so merchants ultimately receive local fiat currency.

And Visa and Mastercard are actively embracing this trend.

In April 2025, Visa partnered with Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure provider, to enable fintech companies using Bridge to connect to the Visa card network via API, allowing users to directly spend their stablecoin balances at Visa-accepting merchants. In March 2026, the two parties expanded their partnership, planning to roll out these stablecoin-linked card programs to over 100 countries and regions globally.

Visa also disclosed that total transaction volume on its stablecoin-linked cards reached approximately $5.2 billion in 2025, representing a 319% year-over-year increase. As of 2026, it has launched over 160 global stablecoin-linked card programs across more than 50 countries.

Mastercard is also accelerating its rollout of similar initiatives.

In April 2025, Mastercard announced a partnership with firms including OKX and Nuvei to explore end-to-end stablecoin payment flows from crypto wallets to merchant point-of-sale systems. In May, Mastercard partnered with MoonPay to enable enterprises and fintech companies to issue Mastercard cards linked to stablecoin balances. Users can spend their stablecoins, while merchants can process these payments exactly like traditional bank card transactions.

From MetaMask, Kraken, and Bybit to OKX and MoonPay, a growing number of crypto-native enterprises are building connectivity with traditional bank card networks.

An important industry shift is unfolding beneath this trend: stablecoin companies do not need to build their own global payment network from scratch. As long as they can connect to Visa and Mastercard rails, they have an unprecedented opportunity to bring on-chain dollars into hundreds of millions of consumer payment scenarios worldwide.

For Visa and Mastercard, this represents a major new business expansion opportunity. They do not need to issue USDT or USDC themselves, nor do they need to become stablecoin issuers. As long as they maintain control over core value chain links — including the global payment network, merchant acceptance, and transaction processing — they can capture a share of the fast-growing stablecoin payment market.

For this reason, at this Hong Kong FinTech Week, I am eager to learn about Visa and Mastercard’s latest strategic plans for stablecoin payments: How will they deepen partnerships with crypto wallets, stablecoin issuers, and payment firms? Will stablecoins expand beyond today’s stablecoin card consumer use cases into cross-border remittances, corporate payments, and global commercial settlement?

Perhaps the real drivers of mass commercial adoption for stablecoins are not just the stablecoin issuers themselves, but also these traditional financial infrastructure giants that already operate global-scale payment networks.

Three Well-Funded Stablecoin Companies to Watch in Hong Kong’s Market

When tracking Hong Kong’s stablecoin startup ecosystem, three companies stand out as priority targets for observation: RedotPay, PhotonPay, and RD Technologies.

All three are Hong Kong-rooted, unlisted fintech firms that represent the most active players in Hong Kong’s stablecoin and payment infrastructure space over the past two years. Each has raised over $40 million in funding, placing them in the top tier of local stablecoin companies: RD Technologies has raised approximately $90 million in total funding, while RedotPay’s total funding has reached nearly $200 million.

If I could only select a handful of stablecoin companies to connect with in depth during Hong Kong FinTech Week, these three would be at the top of my list.

The three companies represent distinct directions for stablecoin commercialization.

RedotPay, headquartered in Central, Hong Kong, primarily offers consumer-facing stablecoin payment services, including crypto payment cards, wallets, and cross-border payments. It raised approximately $194 million in total funding in 2025. Recent market reports indicate the company is considering confidentially filing for a U.S. IPO by the end of 2026, with a potential valuation of $4–5 billion.

PhotonPay, with its global headquarters in Hong Kong, originally built its core business on enterprise cross-border payments, and is now integrating stablecoins into its global financial infrastructure. It primarily serves corporate clients, offering global collections and payments, multi-currency accounts, card issuance, and local clearing services. On October 29, 2026, PhotonPay announced the completion of a $40 million Series C round led by Blockchain Capital, with participation from SBI Group.

RD Technologies, headquartered in Hong Kong and founded in 2020, focuses on stablecoins, corporate payments, and financial infrastructure that connects traditional finance with Web3. In July 2025, the company closed a nearly $40 million Series A2 round. According to information available to the author, the company is actively expanding its stablecoin business in Africa, and growing the application ecosystem for its USD-denominated stablecoin RDUSD, among other initiatives.

Of the three, one focuses on consumers, one deepens its roots in enterprise cross-border payments, and one explores compliant stablecoins and adjacent financial infrastructure. They represent several distinct business models emerging in Hong Kong’s stablecoin industry.

For RedotPay, I aim to learn what real-world scenarios drive consumers to actually use stablecoin payments. For PhotonPay, I want to understand why enterprises are willing to integrate stablecoins into their day-to-day collections, payments, and fund management workflows. For RD Technologies, I am most interested in how compliant stablecoins connect with Hong Kong’s existing banking system, payment networks, and financial institutions, and how the company plans to find its niche and target markets in the global stablecoin landscape.

The answers to these questions will help us gauge the long-term commercial value of the stablecoin ecosystem Hong Kong is building.

Ant International: The Ubiquitous Fintech Giant

Ant International and its parent group Ant Group are among the most worthy research targets at this Hong Kong FinTech Week.

If companies like RedotPay and PhotonPay represent the exploratory efforts of a new generation of stablecoin payment startups, Ant International’s relevance lies in a different position: it already operates a massive global payment network, and is now extending that network into blockchain and on-chain finance.

First, Ant International already operates its own Whale blockchain platform, primarily used for global fund management, cross-border payments, and inter-institutional fund settlement. It has previously partnered with international financial institutions including Standard Chartered and HSBC to explore cross-border fund management and settlement solutions built on blockchain and tokenized deposits.

Second, the Ant ecosystem is actively building out stablecoin and public chain infrastructure.

Both Ant International and Ant Digital Technologies have publicly expressed intent to apply for Hong Kong stablecoin issuance licenses. At the same time, Ant Digital Technologies launched Jovay, an Ethereum Layer 2 network built for institutional-grade use cases including RWA.

There is also a notable independent public chain called Pharos. Its core team is composed of former blockchain business staff from Ant Group, and it has established a strategic partnership with Ant Digital Technologies, focusing on RWA asset tokenization and institutional-grade financial infrastructure.

From blockchain platforms like Whale, to stablecoins, to Ant Digital Technologies’ Jovay, and to Pharos which maintains close ties with the Ant ecosystem, Ant and its affiliated teams have built multi-layered coverage across the blockchain space.

Once Ant obtains the required licenses, it will be positioned to rapidly enter adjacent niche markets, leveraging its existing global payment network and financial institution resources.

After all, Ant International’s biggest advantage may not be its ability to launch another public chain, but the massive merchant and user network it has already built. Its global payment network connects over 150 million merchants and 2 billion user accounts.

Over recent years, I have visited and researched payment systems in approximately 20 countries and regions, and found that Ant International’s business reach extends to a remarkably large number of markets.

In markets including Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong SAR, I have been able to use Alipay for payments across a range of scenarios. These first-hand experiences gave me a more tangible sense of the sheer scale of Ant International’s existing global payment network coverage.

Finally, there is a capital market development worth noting.

In July 2026, Ant International announced the completion of an approximately $1.2 billion Series A round, with participation from Ant Group, Alibaba, and multiple international investment institutions. Prior to this, multiple media outlets reported that Ant International might launch a Hong Kong IPO within 2026. However, as of now, no official timeline for the public listing has been confirmed, and media reports should not be interpreted as evidence that the company has already submitted a listing application.

If the IPO moves forward, Ant International will become a key case study to track the capitalization journey of global payment and fintech companies.

Standard Chartered, HSBC, and OSL: Three Competing Paths for Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Market

There are three more companies worth focused attention in Hong Kong’s stablecoin market: Standard Chartered Bank, HSBC, and OSL.

These players represent three distinct stablecoin commercialization paths: the Standard Chartered ecosystem is entering via corporate and institutional payments, HSBC is entering via retail users and everyday consumer spending, and OSL is leveraging a USD stablecoin to build a payment and settlement network for global enterprises.

The first path is the Standard Chartered ecosystem’s enterprise-focused stablecoin.

Strictly speaking, the issuer of HKDAP, a Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, is not Standard Chartered Bank itself, but Anchorpoint, a joint venture between Standard Chartered Hong Kong, HKT, and Animoca Brands. Standard Chartered is a key shareholder in the venture, and provides banking infrastructure support for HKDAP.

HKDAP initially adopted an institution-first approach, targeting corporate clients and professional investors, with a focus on exploring use cases including cross-border payments, corporate fund management, and tokenized fund subscription and settlement.

In August 2026, HKDAP began phased rollout, with Standard Chartered Hong Kong as its first bank distributor. For Standard Chartered, the value of stablecoins extends beyond payments: it lies in leveraging 24/7 on-chain settlement capabilities to improve corporate cross-border capital flows and global treasury management.

The second path is HSBC’s retail-focused Hong Kong dollar stablecoin.

Unlike the Standard Chartered ecosystem’s enterprise-first entry, HSBC chose to focus on the retail financial market it knows best.

In April 2026, HSBC was awarded one of Hong Kong’s first batch of stablecoin issuance licenses, and on October 23, 2026, it began phased rollout of its Hong Kong dollar stablecoin RedCoin via its PayMe platform.

HSBC’s core advantage is its existing user acquisition channels. PayMe already has over 3.3 million users, and HSBC Hong Kong’s mobile banking platform boasts a massive customer base. Going forward, users will be able to use their familiar banking and payment apps to send personal transfers, make merchant payments, and even subscribe to tokenized investment products using the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin.

The core of this path is bringing stablecoins directly into ordinary consumers’ daily financial lives, so users do not need to become crypto-native first to access on-chain payment capabilities.

The third path is OSL’s USD stablecoin and global payment network.

Unlike the first two players, which are primarily focused on Hong Kong dollar stablecoins, OSL chose to launch the USD stablecoin USDGO.

In February 2026, OSL announced the launch of USDGO on its platform. This is a USD stablecoin issued by U.S.-based Anchorage Digital Bank, with OSL acting as brand partner and distributor. It is backed by 1:1 USD reserves, and targets use cases including corporate fund management, liquidity management, and cross-border payment and settlement.

This signals that OSL is not only aiming to operate as a digital asset trading platform; it aims to evolve into the infrastructure layer connecting stablecoins, traditional financial institutions, and global enterprise payment demand.

From the HKDAP Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, to HSBC’s RedCoin, to the USDGO USD stablecoin, the three companies have chosen distinct entry points, corresponding to different customer segments and business models.

One builds from corporate capital flows, one builds from ordinary consumers, and one builds from the global USD payment and settlement network.

Which of these three paths will be the first to achieve a viable, scalable business model? Will Hong Kong-issued Hong Kong dollar stablecoins actually gain traction in everyday payments and cross-border trade? And how will USD stablecoins connect with Hong Kong’s local financial system?

These are all questions I hope to gain deeper insights into while on-site at Hong Kong FinTech Week.

Of course, beyond these 10 companies closely tied to crypto industry development, Hong Kong FinTech Week is home to many other noteworthy enterprises and innovations. I hope this list serves as a starting point for discussion, and look forward to connecting with more industry participants on-site, to observe first-hand how traditional finance and crypto are colliding and integrating.