Standard Chartered CEO Says ‘All Money Will Be Digital’

Customary Chartered’s CEO made feedback predicting the tip of money and the digitization of all cash on the Hong Kong FinTech Week 2025. 

In the course of the occasion, Customary Chartered Group Chief Government Invoice Winters said that the financial institution shares a typical perception with the Hong Kong management that every one transactions will ultimately be settled on the blockchain.  

“All transactions will decide on blockchains ultimately, and all cash can be digital,” Winters mentioned, framing the shift as nothing lower than a “full rewiring of the monetary system.”

He added that whereas there’s a imaginative and prescient, they didn’t know precisely how the system can be rewired. Due to this, experimentation is important, and Hong Kong excels on this space. Winters credited Hong Kong regulators for placing a steadiness between experimentation and compliance, embracing innovation whereas sustaining safeguards. 

“Hong Kong has already established that main function,” Winters mentioned. “I’ve each cause to consider it would proceed to play that function.”

HSBC expresses confidence in Hong Kong’s monetary ecosystem

Other than Customary Chartered’s prediction, HSBC Group Chief Government Georges Elhedery additionally introduced up Hong Kong’s expertise ecosystem throughout the dialogue. 

Elhedery cited the financial institution’s $13.6 billion funding proposal to privatize Cling Seng Financial institution as a vote of confidence within the area’s potential. 

“This summarizes how a lot confidence and conviction now we have within the outlook for Hong Kong’s monetary and know-how innovation,” Elhedery mentioned.

He added that past banking infrastructure, HSBC can also be investing in schooling and analysis.

He shared their preparations with the Hong Kong College of Science and Know-how to nurture the subsequent technology of innovators who might drive monetary transformation in Hong Kong. 

HSBC originated because the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Company in 1865 however is now a multinational common financial institution headquartered in London. 

Associated: Malaysia’s central bank sets three-year roadmap to pilot asset tokenization

Hong Kong Monetary Secretary on having mainland China as backers

In the course of the panel, Paul Chan Mo-po, Hong Kong’s Monetary Secretary, additionally contributed to the dialogue by underscoring the area’s distinctive place as a monetary hub and a gateway to mainland China. 

When requested whether or not Hong Kong might overtake Switzerland because the world’s prime cross-border wealth administration hub, Chan mentioned Hong Kong’s basis is already robust. 

“We’ve got an exquisite ecosystem — glorious merchandise, skilled companies,” Chan mentioned. “Alternatively, the mainland is our backing. It has an enormous inhabitants and wealth, so we’re very assured.”