HSBC needs someone to helm its tokenization efforts

HSBC, the British multinational bank which manages the largest amount of assets in Europe, doubles down its interest in digital currencies. The bank is looking for a top executive to work with asset tokenization. 

On Jan. 30, HSBC opened the GPBW Product Director of Tokenisation position with a hiring process scheduled to end by Feb. 13. According to the job description, the “tokenization director would be responsible for “designing and implementing” a global tokenization proposition and representing the bank in front of regulators and digital assets ecosystem.

The candidate should possess knowledge of digital assets, especially around asset tokenization and custody, as well as “deep insights” into the industry and key geographical wealth markets.

This marks HSBC’s accelerating interest in digital currencies, which had been manifested earlier in a number of collaborations. In April 2022, the bank rolled out its metaverse investment product for wealthy clients in Singapore and Hong Kong. Earlier, it joined the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Global Markets Advisory Committee (GMAC).

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However, the main area of HSBC’s interest lies in the global development of the central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). In September 2021, HSBC Group CEO Noel Quinn outlined the firm’s commitment to supporting central bank digital currencies while stressing skepticism over risks associated with cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.

The British bank participated in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s 12-week proof-of-concept pilot for a CBDC and was present at the launch of the Universal Digital Payment Network (UDPN) — a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform that would serve a similar purpose to what the SWIFT network does for banks, except for stablecoins and CBDCs. HSBC is also one of the 14 central and commercial banks, collaborating with SWIFT in its testing of transactions of CBDCs and tokenized assets on existing financial infrastructure.