Both Standard Chartered and Ant International are participants of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s CBDC-enabled Ensemble Sandbox.

Since May this year, Standard Chartered Hong Kong has been participating in Project Ensemble as a member of its Architecture Community, to jointly develop industry standards and assist in the design and implementation of the sandbox, which tests use cases for tokenisation.

Ant International is also a participant in the Ensemble Sandbox, developing two use cases using its Whale platform.Anthony Lin, head of Hong Kong and Greater China & North Asia, and global head of Market Management, Transaction Banking, at Standard Chartered, says the intra-group transactions with Ant International represent a significant milestone for the bank, embedding transaction workflows with its core banking systems in a real-world commercial setting, while making the process transparent to customers’ business-as-usual workflow. “Inefficient working capital costs corporate clients significant revenue drag and we, at Standard Chartered, are committed to adopting the latest technology and collaborating with our regulatory stakeholders to enable the next phase of financial market infrastructure powered by blockchain and tokenisation," he says. "As a member in the Architecture Community of the HKMA’s Project Ensemble, Standard Chartered is excited to work closely with clients, including Ant International, to co-create solutions that will provide seamless, 24/7, real time treasury solutions.”