Ant International and HSBC Launch Real-Time Tokenised Treasury Management in the Middle East

Ant International and HSBC have expanded their partnership to bring real-time treasury management to the Middle East via tokenized deposits. For fintech professionals, this move signals a major shift in how liquidity is managed across borders, utilizing blockchain to bypass traditional settlement delays in the United Arab Emirates and beyond.

What was announced

Ant International has integrated HSBC’s Tokenised Deposit Service (TDS) to facilitate real-time treasury operations in the Middle East. This expansion follows the successful completion of pilot transactions involving two distinct payment corridors. The first involved intra-UAE dirham-denominated transfers, while the second focused on cross-border US dollar payments initiated from the UAE and settled in international markets, including Hong Kong and Singapore.

These transactions were managed through WhaleRTP, Ant International’s proprietary blockchain-based platform designed for real-time treasury management. WhaleRTP is currently integrated with more than 20 global banks and supports 17 currencies, including the US dollar, Hong Kong dollar, and UAE dirham. By utilizing HSBC’s TDS, which is now live in six global markets—Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the UAE—Ant International becomes the first client in the Middle East to adopt the service.

The infrastructure supports multiple currencies, including CNH, HKD, SGD, EUR, GBP, USD, and AED, providing 24/7 access to liquidity. This technical integration is intended to support the regional operations of Ant International’s core business units, including the cross-border payment solution Alipay+, the merchant payment service Antom, and the B2B trade platform WorldFirst. The collaboration between the two firms involved a jointly designed transaction workflow to ensure interoperability between tokenized deposit networks.

"This marks an important milestone in our journey towards achieving real-time treasury management across the globe. With the support of regional bank partners such as HSBC, we aim to establish a global treasury hub in the Middle East in the near future to better support our global operations. We look forward to contributing to the development of the region's rapidly growing digital finance ecosystem."

Kelvin Li, General Manager of Platform Tech and Senior Vice President at Ant International.

The companies involved

Ant International is a major player in the global digital payment and financial services landscape, operating as a subsidiary of Ant Group. The company manages a suite of high-profile fintech brands, including Alipay+, which connects global merchants with various digital payment methods, and WorldFirst, which focuses on international trade services for small and medium-sized enterprises. Ant International has been active in the blockchain space since 2019, deploying tokenized deposit technologies across financial hubs in Europe, the United States, and Asia to modernize liquidity management.

HSBC, one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations, serves as a critical partner in this ecosystem. With a significant presence in the Middle East, North Africa, and Türkiye (MENAT) region, HSBC has been increasingly focused on digital assets and the tokenization of traditional financial instruments. The bank’s Tokenised Deposit Service represents its effort to bridge the gap between traditional banking oversight and the speed of distributed ledger technology. HSBC’s global reach and established infrastructure provide the necessary regulatory and operational framework for large-scale fintech entities like Ant International to move liquidity across borders without the friction typically associated with legacy correspondent banking.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has closely followed the strategic movements of both institutions as they navigate the intersection of traditional finance and emerging technology. Recently, we covered how Google Gemini and Antom Partner to Scale Google AI Plus Access Across Asia, highlighting Ant International’s role in expanding digital service accessibility through its merchant payment arm. Our reporting on HSBC has often touched on its broader corporate responsibilities and market positioning, such as in the report UK Banks Lead Europe in Coal Financing as Barclays and HSBC Defy Net-Zero Trends. These stories reflect the complex environment in which these firms operate, balancing aggressive technological innovation in payment infrastructure with the pressures of global regulatory and environmental standards.

What this means

The shift toward tokenized deposits marks a critical evolution in corporate treasury, moving beyond the experimental phase into functional, cross-border utility. By enabling 24/7 liquidity movement, this partnership places significant pressure on traditional settlement systems that still rely on restricted banking hours and manual reconciliation. The Middle East is rapidly positioning itself as a testing ground for these technologies, potentially challenging the dominance of established Western financial hubs. However, the industry now faces a pressing question regarding interoperability. As more banks launch proprietary tokenized services, the risk of liquidity silos grows. The success of such initiatives will depend on whether different blockchain-based networks can eventually communicate seamlessly without reintroducing the very friction they aim to eliminate.