Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said stablecoins will become an important part of Hong Kong’s trade payments as the city moves into more of a Web3 realm.
According to an Oct. 30 report in the South China Morning Post, Jeremy Allaire said Circle (cUSDC) is a “global network of stablecoins that will make market transactions cheaper and faster through Hong Kong.” He said that he was targeting Hong Kong for the purpose of “.
“In emerging and developing markets…we have importers that are importing from Asia, and a lot of the trade flows are cleared through Hong Kong,” Allaire said at Hong Kong FinTech Week 2024.
He said Hong Kong’s position as a trade hub makes it an attractive market for future trade payments to be facilitated by stablecoins.
“We’re seeing this demand on both sides…Companies are like, ‘This is better, it’s faster, it’s cheaper,'” Allaire said.
At the event, Allaire announced two recent partnership projects. These projects include Circle’s customer loyalty solutions partnership with Hong Kong Telecom and collaboration with Thunes to support cross-border transaction settlement using USDC.
Allaire, the world’s second-largest stablecoin issuer, considers Circle a “global regulatory guinea pig for stablecoins” due to its regulatory compliance. While other institutions are considering adopting central bank digital currencies as the basis for a global on-chain economy, Allaire said stablecoins are already slated to play that role.
“Our view is that this will become a regulated financial infrastructure everywhere in the world,” he said.
In July, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the results of a consultation paper on the proposed introduction of a regulatory regime for stablecoins. Following this, the HKMA plans to introduce a new stablecoin regulatory framework by 2025.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s own stablecoin issuer First Digital Trust will expand First Digital USD to Solana as it explores new ecosystems after rolling out products on the Ethereum and BNB chains, October 30. It was just announced.
