Jack Ma’s Ant International eyes stablecoin licenses in Singapore, Hong Kong

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Ant International reportedly plans to use for stablecoin issuer licenses successful Singapore and Hong Kong, signaling increasing organization cryptocurrency adoption among fintech firms.

Ant International, a Singapore-based portion of the Jack Ma-backed Ant Group, is preparing to taxable a licence exertion successful Hong Kong aft the city’s stablecoin regulatory model takes effect successful August, according to a Bloomberg study citing unidentified sources. The institution is expected to prosecute akin licensing efforts successful Singapore and Luxembourg.

Ant Group is an affiliate of the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba Group, which owns and operates the world’s largest integer outgo platform, Alipay, serving implicit 80 cardinal merchants and 1.3 cardinal users worldwide.

The determination underscores rising assurance among accepted fintech players successful the maturing planetary regulatory scenery for stablecoins, which are progressively utilized for payments and integer plus settlement.

The quality follows the transition of the Stablecoin Ordinance bill, Hong Kong’s archetypal licensing authorities for fiat-based stablecoins, connected May 21, which is acceptable to spell into afloat effect connected Aug. 1.

Under the caller regime, stablecoin issuers indispensable get a licence from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) for stablecoin issuance. Noncompliance volition beryllium punishable with fines of up to 5 cardinal Hong Kong dollars ($640,000).

Ant International to leverage stablecoins for cross-border payments, treasury management

Ant International seeks to follow stablecoins for its fiscal operations, including cross-border payments and treasury absorption services.

During 2024, a 3rd of the firm’s $1 trillion worthy of planetary transactions were processed done its blockchain-based Whale platform, the sources stated.

Ant International besides handles the transactions of its e-commerce affiliate, Alibaba.

Ant Group and its affiliates person antecedently shown involvement successful blockchain and tokenization solutions. In December 2024, Ant Digital partnered with Sui layer-1 blockchain to tokenize real-world assets related to the environmental, societal and governance space.

$1 trillion stablecoin proviso adjacent large crypto marketplace catalyst for 2025?

The quality comes days aft the full stablecoin marketplace capitalization surpassed the $250 cardinal all-time precocious for the archetypal clip connected Sunday, DefiLlama information shows.

The planetary stablecoin proviso whitethorn surpass $1 trillion earlier the extremity of 2025, perchance becoming the adjacent important catalyst for the maturation of the cryptocurrency market, according to David Pakman, managing spouse astatine crypto-native concern steadfast CoinFund.

“This is the large catalyst that’s been missing for implicit a decade: a large question of people’s wealthiness onchain that brings everyone other on,” Pakman said during Cointelegraph’s Chainreaction unrecorded amusement connected X connected March 27.

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