Ant International, the Singapore-based company behind Alipay+, has moved dirhams and dollars in pilot transfers on HSBC’s tokenised deposit network in the UAE. The two companies said on 6 October that the tests covered real-time dirham transfers within the UAE and US dollar payments from the UAE to Hong Kong and Singapore.

The transfers began on WhaleRTP, Ant’s blockchain-based treasury platform, and were carried out through HSBC’s Tokenised Deposit Service using a workflow the two firms designed together. They are pilots. Neither company has said when the service will be offered to Ant in production or what volumes were moved.

HSBC added the dirham in June

HSBC launched its tokenised deposit service in the UAE on 22 June, adding the dirham to a network that already handled euros, sterling, US dollars, Hong Kong dollars and Singapore dollars. The service lets eligible corporate clients move deposit balances between HSBC accounts at any hour. It now runs in six markets.

Ant says WhaleRTP is supported by more than 20 banks, handles real-time transfers in more than 17 currencies and has been in use since 2019 in Hong Kong, Singapore, Europe and the US.

Kyle Boag, regional head of global payments solutions for HSBC in the Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye, said: “Interoperability between tokenised deposit networks demonstrates how HSBC can connect different infrastructures to deliver greater value for our clients.”

Kelvin Li, general manager of platform technology at Ant International, said that with the support of regional banks such as HSBC, “we aim to establish a global treasury hub in the Middle East in the near future.” Ant has not said where that hub would be based.

Three banks in ten days

The pilot is the third tokenised deposit move by a global bank in the UAE in ten days.

Citi took its Token Services live in the UAE on 28 September for US dollars and euros. Its announcement did not mention the dirham. Days later, Mashreq and Citi completed a live cross-border payment using tokenised deposits on Swift’s blockchain ledger, part of a pilot with 17 banks.

The three work differently. Citi’s and HSBC’s services move money between accounts inside each bank. The Swift ledger connects deposits held at different banks. The Ant pilot sits between the two: a company’s own blockchain platform sending instructions into a bank’s tokenised network.

HSBC is so far the only one of the three to move dirhams on a tokenised network in the UAE. Neither HSBC nor Ant has said how many UAE clients use the service, or what the pilot would have to show before Ant uses it in production.