Chinese brokerage firm GF Securities launches offshore yuan-backed tokenized securities in Hong Kong

Chinese brokerage GF Securities has partnered with HashKey to launch tokenized securities in currencies, including the U.S. dollar, the Hong Kong dollar, and the offshore yuan, in Hong Kong, as the city continues its drive to become a crypto hub.

In a statement released Friday, HashKey said the daily-interest accruing, daily-redeemable tokenized securities, named "GF Token," are available for high-net-worth individuals and institutional professional investors.

"This milestone signifies a major step forward in the city's real-world asset (RWA) tokenization journey and lays the groundwork for broader on-chain collaboration of tokenized securities by the Hong Kong securities industry in the future," HashKey said.

Specifically, the USD version of the tokens is benchmarked to the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR), a broad measure of the cost of borrowing cash overnight, collateralized by Treasury securities.

The tokens are issued on HashKey Chain and set to be distributed at a later date.

"The collaboration with HashKey Group to launch GF Token is a key initiative in building Hong Kong's tokenized securities ecosystem," said Zeng Chao, CEO of GF Securities (Hong Kong), in the statement. "We believe this step will further solidify GF Securities (Hong Kong)'s first-mover advantage in emerging digital finance."

GF Securities' move follows the Hong Kong government's announcement on Thursday of a new policy statement outlining plans to support RWA tokenization and expand its crypto licensing framework.

"The Policy Statement 2.0 sets out our vision for [digital asset] development and showcases the practical use of tokenization through application, with a view to boosting the diversification of use cases," said Paul Chan, Hong Kong's financial secretary, in a statement.

Guotai Junan International, another major Chinese brokerage firm, announced that it had obtained regulatory approval to offer cryptocurrency trading services in Hong Kong earlier this week. Several other securities firms, including China Merchants Securities and Huatai International, are also seeking upgrades to their licenses to enable crypto trading.

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