How DACC Is Building Hong Kong’s Digital Asset Infrastructure for Tokenised Bonds, Stablecoins and Cross-Border Settlement

HONG KONG, July 18, 2026 – Digital Asset Clearing Center, better known as DACC, is positioning itself as a Hong Kong-headquartered infrastructure company for the next phase of regulated digital finance, where tokenised bonds, stablecoins, blockchain-based assets, cross-border RMB settlement and traditional banking rails increasingly converge.

For Serra Wei, Co-Founder and Chair of DACC, the future of finance is not simply about putting assets on blockchain. The real opportunity lies in connecting blockchain-based assets with the payment systems, custody structures, broker-dealer networks and compliance frameworks that institutions already use.

“We are all agreeing that the future of assets and financial products will be more and more on blockchain,” Wei said in an interview with AsiaBizToday and CoFE Conversations. “But every region has its uniqueness and killer products in how the ecosystem will grow.”

In Hong Kong’s case, Wei believes the most important product is the digital bond. DACC is building around that opportunity. Headquartered in Hong Kong, the company focuses on digital asset clearing, settlement and infrastructure. It has 12 institutional investors, mostly from Asia, including four publicly traded companies on its cap table, two listed in Hong Kong and two listed in mainland China.

Wei’s own background reflects the bridge that DACC is trying to build. She started her career in traditional finance at Goldman Sachs, studied at Stanford Graduate School of Business and later moved into venture capital, investing in digital assets, tokens and crypto fund-of-funds from as early as 2017. Her transition from investor to founder began when another venture capital firm backed her to start a company.

DACC’s Hong Kong focus emerged around four years ago, when the city began making a stronger policy push into Web3, tokenisation and digital asset infrastructure.

Why Hong Kong’s Digital Asset Strategy Matters

Hong Kong is positioning itself as one of Asia’s most important regulated digital asset hubs, with a focus on tokenisation, digital bonds, stablecoins and cross-border settlement.

Wei sees the city’s role as distinct from markets that are primarily focused on crypto trading. Hong Kong’s advantage, she said, lies in its existing strength as an international financial centre and bond issuance hub, combined with its connection to mainland China and cross-border RMB flows.

“The way we see it in Hong Kong is that Hong Kong plays a unique role,” Wei said. “They are focusing on tokenisation. On one hand, you have assets that are going to be on the blockchain. Specifically, we see the killer product in Hong Kong to be digital bonds.”

Hong Kong has already been active in government digital bond issuance. Wei noted that the Hong Kong government has issued multiple digital bonds and continues to view this as part of its broader market development strategy. She also referred to policy discussions around tokenising existing Hong Kong government bonds and creating retail participation quotas for government digital bonds.

This is important because digital bonds could become one of the first mainstream institutional use cases for blockchain in capital markets.

For issuers, tokenised bonds can potentially improve settlement efficiency, transparency and distribution. For investors, they could open access to new digital financial products. For Hong Kong, they reinforce the city’s ambition to remain a leading capital market while also becoming a Web3 finance hub.

The Infrastructure Problem DACC Is Solving

The challenge, according to Wei, is that tokenised assets do not exist in isolation. A bond may be issued on a blockchain, but payment may still need to move through off-chain systems such as SWIFT, CIPS or digital RMB infrastructure. Stablecoins may operate on public blockchains, while tokenised deposits may sit on private chains. Banks and broker-dealers still rely on existing systems, compliance workflows and customer interfaces.

DACC is trying to solve this fragmentation. “When you have assets that are on the blockchain wanting to settle with money, when the payment system is off the blockchain, we provide this payment gateway,” Wei said.

DACC calls this solution DACC TransFusion. The platform is designed to support cross-chain and cross-payment settlement across public blockchains, private blockchains, stablecoins, SWIFT, CIPS and digital RMB.

In simple terms, DACC is building the connective layer between tokenised assets and multiple forms of money. That matters because the future of digital finance is unlikely to be one single rail. It will be a multi-rail system where blockchain assets, stablecoins, tokenised deposits, digital RMB, traditional payment systems and bank infrastructure coexist.

Wei described this future as one where cross-border finance will involve “assets on the blockchain” and “many different forms of money”, whether on-chain or off-chain.

Reducing Cross-Border Settlement From Days to Seconds

One of the clearest business benefits of DACC’s infrastructure is settlement speed. Traditional cross-border transactions through SWIFT can take three to five days. Wei said DACC’s model, which links blockchain asset finality with payment-system finality, can dramatically compress that timeline.

“For cross-border transactions, people sometimes still complain that SWIFT transactions can take three to five days,” she said. “With this new way of settlement, we can substantially reduce the cross-border payment time from three to five days to seconds.”

For banks, broker-dealers, asset managers and trading platforms, that has major implications. Faster settlement can reduce counterparty risk, improve liquidity, free up capital and make cross-border products more efficient. In digital bond markets, where issuers and investors may be located across different jurisdictions, settlement efficiency can become a key competitive advantage.

Making Digital Bonds Available Through Existing Financial Institutions

DACC’s strategy is not to bypass existing banks and broker-dealers. It is to integrate with them. Wei said one of DACC’s pilots involves taking digital bonds issued on private blockchains and making them available for retail distribution, something she described as not having been done globally in the same way.

The goal is to allow digital bonds and tokenised assets to be accessed through existing financial institutions, including banks and broker-dealers in Hong Kong, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and other international markets.

This is where DACC’s shareholder base becomes strategically important. Wei said three of the public companies on DACC’s cap table are large Web2 fintech companies in Asia. One of them, TTL, has more than 50% market share among Hong Kong banks and broker-dealers.

That integration allows DACC to connect digital asset infrastructure with systems institutions already use. “From the banks’ and broker-dealers’ perspective, it is seamless,” Wei said. “They do not really feel the difference because they are still using existing broker-dealer systems for trading. But now they are able to access digital bonds, tokenised assets and receive stablecoins.”

This may be one of the key reasons DACC’s model is relevant to mainstream finance. The company is not asking institutions to abandon their existing platforms. It is enabling digital asset access through those platforms.

Stablecoins as Regulated Settlement Rails

Stablecoins are another important part of DACC’s infrastructure view. Wei said stablecoins are increasingly being discussed not merely as crypto instruments, but as payment and settlement rails inside regulated financial systems.

In the United States, larger stablecoins are buying more US debt, which can support broader capital market activity. In Hong Kong, Wei expects bank-issued stablecoins to support use cases within the banking ecosystem.

“There are two banks that are issuing stablecoins in Hong Kong, and I think there are going to be different use cases around the banking ecosystem,” she said. “It is this ability where money can move more seamlessly.”

DACC already supports stablecoin inflows and outflows for trading, connected to existing banks and broker-dealer systems. Wei said the company is looking forward to upcoming stablecoin developments in Hong Kong, particularly as they enable more efficient bank-to-bank transactions and trading settlement.

The important distinction is that stablecoins, in DACC’s model, are part of a regulated financial infrastructure stack. They are not treated as separate from banking. Instead, they are one form of money among several forms that may be used for settlement.

Compliance and Custody as Core Infrastructure

For institutional digital assets, compliance is not optional. Wei said financial institutions operate through regulated policies and procedures, and DACC has built compliance and risk management into its activities and business divisions.

“When dealing with financial institutions, it is really about compliance and policy procedures,” she said. “Every activity or every division within DACC has embedded compliance and risk.”

That includes custody controls such as checks and balances, multi-approval processes, backups, segregation of assets and segregation of duties.

DACC is also in the process of becoming a regulated custodian through an upcoming SFC licence in Hong Kong. For Wei, this is a necessary step if digital asset infrastructure is to gain the trust of clients and regulators.

This is where the institutional digital asset market differs from earlier crypto cycles. Banks and regulated financial institutions require auditability, compliance controls, asset segregation, operational resilience and regulatory clarity before they can scale adoption.

RMB Internationalisation and Cross-Border Digital Finance

DACC’s Hong Kong location also gives the company a strategic position in cross-border RMB settlement. Wei said China’s position as the world’s second-largest economy means global financial institutions are increasingly required to hold and engage with RMB. If tokenisation and digital bonds continue to grow, cross-border RMB settlement could become a major use case.

“If tokenisation and digital bonds continue to increase, that is a great use case for cross-border RMB,” she said. “We are seeing the trend, and we are supported by government initiatives and market demand.”

This links directly to Hong Kong’s broader role as a connector between mainland China and international capital markets.

DACC’s infrastructure is designed to support multiple payment systems, including CIPS, SWIFT and digital RMB. That positions the company to participate in a future where assets may be tokenised, but settlement could involve several forms of money and payment rails.

AI and the Next Phase of Digital Asset Infrastructure

Wei also expects artificial intelligence to become part of DACC’s business and the wider digital finance ecosystem. “AI is the future for whatever industry, and for our industry as well,” she said. “It is going to be incorporated in many elements of our business.”

She said DACC is focused on AI and is exploring acquisition activity involving fintech companies in AI, though she did not disclose details.

As agentic AI develops, digital asset platforms may need to prepare for systems where AI agents assist with asset monitoring, settlement, risk management, compliance checks or transaction routing. That could make trusted infrastructure even more important.

The more automated finance becomes, the more important it will be to ensure that the underlying rails are regulated, secure and auditable.

DACC’s Three-to-Five-Year Ambition

Looking ahead, Wei said DACC wants to become an open financial market infrastructure in Hong Kong, connecting Hong Kong and mainland China while helping grow the tokenisation ecosystem and support RMB internationalisation.

“DACC is uniquely positioned as the open financial market infrastructure in Hong Kong and connecting Hong Kong and Chinese mainland,” she said. “We are aspiring to grow this tokenisation ecosystem along with promoting RMB internationalisation.”

The company also wants to make digital bonds more accessible to global investors and play a meaningful role in retail distribution.

For Asia’s digital finance ecosystem, DACC’s business reflects a broader shift. Digital assets are moving away from speculation and towards infrastructure. Tokenised bonds, stablecoins, digital RMB, custody, settlement, broker-dealer integration and AI-enabled finance are beginning to converge.

The next phase of Web3 in finance may not be defined by crypto trading. It may be defined by trusted infrastructure that allows traditional finance to use blockchain at scale. For DACC, that is the opportunity.