Ecosystem & Market Landscape
Build, buy, partner — and who else is building this
Senior product judgement on infrastructure dependencies, vendor evaluation and where this proposition sits in the wider institutional digital-assets market.
New to the wording on this page? 6 terms explainedShow
Permissioned network
A shared ledger where you must be approved and identified before taking part, as opposed to an open network anyone can join anonymously.
For example: Bitcoin is open — anyone can join with no identity check. A bank settlement network is the opposite: only vetted, licensed institutions are admitted, and everyone knows exactly who everyone else is.
DLTDistributed Ledger Technology
The broader family blockchain belongs to: any system where several parties keep synchronised copies of the same records without one party solely controlling them. Every blockchain is a distributed ledger, but not every distributed ledger is built as a chain of blocks.
For example: Think 'shared spreadsheet everyone can see and no one can secretly edit' as the general idea. Blockchain is one specific way of building that; there are others.
MPCMulti-Party Computation
Splitting a secret key into pieces held by different parties, so a transaction can be approved only when enough of them cooperate — and no single person ever holds the whole key.
For example: Like a bank vault needing three of five managers to turn their keys together. No individual can open it alone, and losing one key does not lock everyone out permanently.
HSMHardware Security Module
A tamper-resistant physical device that stores the secret cryptographic keys controlling digital assets, and signs transactions without the key ever leaving the box.
For example: Like a safe that will sign documents for you through a slot but will never hand the pen outside. If someone steals the whole machine, it destroys its own contents rather than surrender the keys.
CSDCentral Securities Depository
The institution holding the official record of who owns which shares and bonds, and updating it when they are traded. It is the master register for securities.
For example: When you buy shares through an app, the app is not the real record. This institution updates the definitive ledger behind the scenes saying the shares are now yours.
SPVSpecial Purpose Vehicle
A separate legal company created to hold specific assets or run one activity, kept apart from the parent's balance sheet so its risks stay contained.
For example: A bank launching a stablecoin might put the reserve assets in a separate company, so that if the bank itself hit trouble, the reserves backing the stablecoin are legally insulated.
This is an independent fictional case study. No named vendor is used, selected, or endorsed by this platform. Illustrative market participants are shown as examples of a capability category only, subject to procurement, architecture, legal, risk and regulatory approval in any real implementation.
Build / buy / partner decision framework
Where to build, where to license, and where to interoperate rather than own
Build in-house
Best for
- Differentiated client proposition
- Proprietary orchestration and workflow logic
- Product policy engine and client entitlements
- Integration to core banking, treasury systems, payments operations and internal controls
- Client experience and commercial product design
Buy / license
Best for
- Specialist custody and wallet technology
- Blockchain infrastructure components
- Key management and security tooling
- Financial-crime analytics
- Workflow monitoring, observability and reconciliation tools
Partner / interoperate
Best for
- External market infrastructure
- Multi-bank settlement networks
- Tokenised asset platforms
- Custodians and CSDs
- Central-bank, regulator and industry initiatives
- Cross-network interoperability
The platform owner should retain ownership of the client proposition, control framework, product policy and critical integration layer — even where specialist technology is sourced externally.
Partner and Network Selection Framework
Technology selection follows the client use case, settlement asset and regulatory perimeter — it is not a blockchain-first decision.
Illustrative capability landscape
Not vendors this platform uses — categories a PM must evaluate, with examples of who operates in each
Vendor deep-dive
What each vendor actually offers — and who wins for HSBC
Knowing the category (custody, network, financial crime) is a weak answer on its own. Knowing which specific vendor HSBC has already backed, piloted with, or gone live on — and why — is what separates a rehearsed answer from real research.
Tokenised asset / institutional network infrastructure
The shared ledger multiple banks (or multiple parts of one bank) actually transact on — the single most consequential build/buy/partner call in this whole product area, since switching later means re-platforming live client balances.
What they offer
An interoperable blockchain purpose-built for institutional finance, built on the Daml smart-contract language. Its distinguishing feature is sub-transaction privacy — each counterparty only sees the exact slice of a contract relevant to them (everything else is represented as a cryptographic hash), which is a stronger guarantee than a normal permissioned chain provides without a separate privacy layer bolted on.
How they differ from the others here
Architecturally more open than Corda: the base settlement layer is permissionless, and a shared 'Global Synchronizer' — a neutral, third-party-operated ordering service — sequences transactions across the whole network without being able to read their contents. Each bank can still run its own permissioned node on top, but the network's trust root sits outside any single institution. Adoption has grown fast on that model: 600+ institutions and 30+ 'super validators' (Goldman Sachs' GS DAP, DTCC, Google Cloud) were live by 2026, with $9 trillion in reported monthly volume.
The HSBC-specific signal
HSBC publicly completed a pilot simulating the issuance, transfer and atomic settlement of its own Tokenised Deposit Service on Canton Network — the most recent and most product-specific piece of evidence in this whole comparison, since it's this case study's own flagship product being tested.
What they offer
A permissioned enterprise DLT platform, purpose-built from day one for regulated financial-services workloads rather than adapted from a public-chain design — used for syndicated loans (NatWest/Finastra), reinsurance (B3i/ACORD) and multiple central-bank digital-currency pilots.
How they differ from the others here
Closed at every layer, not just the application: network membership itself is a permissioned club of known, vetted participants, with no shared third-party ordering service in the transaction path — the more centralised-control-friendly design of the two, and the reason banks originally built it that way in 2015. The trade-off is that Corda's privacy is transaction-level, not sub-transaction: a node only sees the deals it's party to, but the 'backchain' of prior linked transactions it must retain to verify validity can leak more history than the immediate deal itself. Corda launched in 2016, and R3 today counts the Bank of Italy, MAS, the Swiss National Bank, Euroclear and SDX among its participants.
The HSBC-specific signal
HSBC's relationship with R3 predates Canton Network's existence by eight years: HSBC joined the R3 consortium within weeks of its September 2015 launch and was one of roughly 40 banks that invested $107M into R3 in 2017 — a much deeper capital and governance relationship, just not one tied to this specific tokenised-deposit use case.
Canton Network is the better answer for this specific product on the evidence — HSBC has already run its own Tokenised Deposit Service through a pilot there, which is a direct, product-specific signal, not an inference. But the harder, more senior version of this question isn't 'which network,' it's 'why would a bank trust a network with a neutral third-party ordering layer for something this sensitive, instead of Corda's fully closed membership model.' The honest answer: Canton's node-level permissioning plus cryptographic sub-transaction privacy is judged sufficient control today, and the network-effect upside (600+ institutions, central infrastructure like DTCC already live) likely outweighs Corda's simpler but more isolated trust model. That's a real, defensible trade-off an interviewer can push on — citing the pilot alone won't survive the follow-up question. R3 is not a loser here either: it's a longer, broader relationship (HSBC member and investor since 2015-17) that likely still underpins other parts of HSBC's DLT footprint, which is exactly why real banks run multi-rail strategies rather than betting everything on one network.
SourceDigital-asset custody and wallet infrastructure
Who actually holds the cryptographic keys and enforces maker-checker policy on every transfer — the control layer a regulator will scrutinise hardest, because a custody failure is a client-money failure.
What they offer
The Harmonize platform — a custody orchestration layer with an HSM-backed policy engine, built specifically to plug into a bank's existing core systems and control framework rather than to run standalone.
How they differ from the others here
Built bank-first from the outset, not adapted from an exchange or fintech product — acquired by Ripple in 2023 specifically to deepen its institutional custody focus.
The HSBC-specific signal
This one isn't hypothetical. HSBC's own digital-assets custody service for tokenised securities runs on Metaco's Harmonize platform — publicly announced in November 2023 and already live.
What they offer
MPC (multi-party computation)-based wallet infrastructure plus a transfer network connecting counterparties directly, and — since gaining a NYDFS trust charter in 2024 — its own regulated qualified-custody offering.
How they differ from the others here
The broadest institutional footprint of any vendor in this category: 80+ banks in live production (including BNY Mellon and ABN AMRO) across 150+ blockchains — but it started by serving exchanges and crypto-native firms before banks, a different origin than Metaco's bank-first design.
The HSBC-specific signal
No publicly disclosed HSBC relationship — the credible benchmark to compare Metaco against, not the incumbent.
What they offer
A Swiss-regulated platform (TDN — Taurus Digital Network) spanning custody, issuance and trading in one stack, for both crypto and tokenised traditional assets.
How they differ from the others here
Strongest in Europe specifically: Deutsche Bank signed a global partnership with Taurus in 2023 to run its own crypto and tokenisation custody, and Credit Suisse was an early investor.
The HSBC-specific signal
No public HSBC relationship — effectively 'the Deutsche Bank equivalent choice,' useful as a contrast, not a contender here.
What they offer
One of the original institutional crypto custodians (founded 2013), now operating as BitGo Bank & Trust — a federally chartered (OCC) national trust bank offering qualified custody with up to $250M of insurance.
How they differ from the others here
The deepest pure-custody regulatory license stack of any vendor here (state trust charters plus a new federal OCC charter) — the strongest fit for a firm that needs custody as a standalone regulated product, not integrated into a bank's own platform.
The HSBC-specific signal
No public HSBC relationship — more relevant to asset managers and exchanges than to a universal bank building its own custody stack.
What they offer
UK-based custody plus ClearLoop, a network letting institutional clients trade on exchanges without pre-funding them — collateral stays in Copper custody, cutting counterparty exposure to the exchange itself.
How they differ from the others here
ClearLoop's exchange-settlement-risk model is genuinely distinctive versus the other four, but it's a trading/exchange-connectivity play, not a deposit-tokenisation platform.
The HSBC-specific signal
No public HSBC relationship, and the least relevant of the five to a tokenised-deposit product specifically.
Metaco wins outright, and not as a judgement call — it's the vendor HSBC has already selected and gone live with for digital-asset custody. The interview-worthy question isn't 'which vendor' but 'why Metaco over Fireblocks,' given Fireblocks has the broader bank client base: the likely answer is that Metaco's bank-first governance and policy-engine model fit HSBC's existing control framework more directly than a platform whose DNA started with exchanges.
SourceFinancial-crime / blockchain intelligence
The screening layer that watches every wallet and transaction for sanctions exposure, mixer/darknet association and other laundering risk — arguably the single hardest gate to pass in this case study's own risk framework.
What they offer
UK-founded blockchain analytics and AML/sanctions screening — Elliptic Navigator (a configurable risk-rules engine) and Lens (wallet screening and investigation) — across roughly 700 institutional clients screening about a billion transactions a week.
How they differ from the others here
The only one of the three with disclosed bank ownership stakes, not just customer contracts — backed by four Global Systemically Important Banks.
The HSBC-specific signal
HSBC made a strategic investment in Elliptic in September 2025, joining JPMorgan (2021), Santander (2022) and Wells Fargo (2025) as GSIB-backers — Elliptic markets itself as 'the first blockchain analytics firm backed by four GSIBs.' That's a materially stronger signal than a vendor contract: HSBC put its own capital behind Elliptic's roadmap.
What they offer
The largest, most established blockchain-analytics platform — KYT (Know Your Transaction) for real-time monitoring, Reactor for investigations, and sanctions screening across the broadest chain and currency coverage of any vendor in this category.
How they differ from the others here
Market leader by scale, brand recognition and law-enforcement/government relationships — the industry's default 'safe choice.'
The HSBC-specific signal
No publicly disclosed HSBC investment or ownership relationship — likely still present somewhere in a group this size's compliance stack, but not the strategically-backed choice.
What they offer
Blockchain intelligence focused on fraud, sanctions and national-security risk, with fast-growing AI-driven risk scoring and strong government and law-enforcement partnerships.
How they differ from the others here
Positioned as more investigation-and-intelligence-led than Chainalysis's broader platform, and newer/more nimble as a company.
The HSBC-specific signal
No public HSBC relationship found.
Elliptic is the clear pick specifically for HSBC — not because Chainalysis or TRM Labs are weaker products (both are credible, widely used platforms), but because HSBC chose to put its own capital into Elliptic in September 2025, the same pattern JPMorgan, Santander and Wells Fargo had already set. An investment signals HSBC wants influence over the vendor's product roadmap, not just a subscription to it — a materially stronger relationship than a procurement contract, and a good example of the kind of detail that separates a rehearsed answer from real research.
SourcePublic industry context
Factual, publicly reported — not a claim about this product's own architecture
HSBC publicly announced its new digital assets custody service for tokenised securities is underpinned by Metaco's Harmonize platform.
HSBC publicly reported completing a pilot simulating the issuance, transfer and atomic settlement of its Tokenised Deposit Service on the Canton Network, as part of interoperability exploration across settlement rails.
HSBC's Tokenised Deposit Service is live for corporate treasury clients in Hong Kong, supporting real-time, always-on HKD and USD payments between a client's own entities.
HSBC Orion, HSBC's platform for digitally native bond issuance, has been publicly reported to have facilitated several billion dollars in tokenised bond transactions across multiple jurisdictions, and was selected for the UK Treasury's digital gilt (DIGIT) pilot.
This case study does not represent HSBC's systems, architecture, procurement choices or confidential strategy. The items above are drawn from HSBC's own public announcements and independent trade press, referenced here only as market context for how a Digital Currencies product manager should read the competitive landscape.
Multi-bank and central-bank infrastructure
Where this product's later phases would eventually have to connect — not built by any single bank alone
Partior
An interbank tokenised-deposit settlement network founded by DBS, J.P. Morgan and Temasek, with Standard Chartered as a founding shareholder and Deutsche Bank also live on the network. Supports 24/7 cross-border interbank transfers in USD, EUR and SGD, with compliance performed in advance to avoid delaying settlement.
Relevance: The closest real-world shape of this product's Phase 4 (cross-bank interoperability) — multiple banks' tokenised deposits settling on a shared, bank-governed network rather than a single institution's ledger.
BIS Project Agorá
A public-private collaboration convened by the Bank for International Settlements and the Institute of International Finance, bringing together seven central banks and 40+ regulated financial institutions — including HSBC, J.P. Morgan, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Swift, Mastercard and UBS — to explore tokenised commercial-bank deposits settling alongside tokenised central-bank reserves on a shared programmable platform for cross-border payments.
Relevance: HSBC is a named participant. Directly relevant to how this product's cross-border corridors (Phase 2) and interoperability layer (Phase 4) could eventually connect to central-bank money, not just other commercial banks.
UK Regulated Liability Network (RLN) pilot
A live-transaction pilot exploring a shared ledger for regulated money — commercial bank deposits and potentially other regulated liabilities — with HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest, Nationwide and Santander all participating.
Relevance: Shows the UK regulatory and industry appetite for exactly the kind of shared, regulated digital-money infrastructure this roadmap's later phases assume — useful evidence that Phase 5 isn't speculative.
Publicly reported industry context
Market context
Competitive and market benchmarks
J.P. Morgan Kinexys
Focus
Institutional digital money, programmable payments, tokenised assets and settlement (formerly Onyx).
Lesson
Early scale matters, but client adoption and trusted payment integration matter more than blockchain branding.
Citi Token Services
Focus
Tokenised deposits for institutional cash management and trade finance, built on Citi's existing Treasury and Trade Solutions franchise.
Lesson
The strongest propositions extend existing transaction-banking relationships and workflows, rather than starting from a blank slate.
Standard Chartered digital-asset ecosystem
Focus
Digital assets, custody (including its Zodia Custody business), tokenisation and Asian and Middle Eastern market connectivity.
Lesson
Network optionality and ecosystem partnerships can accelerate time to market versus building every capability in-house.
DBS Token Services
Focus
Programmable, 24/7 tokenised banking services for institutional clients, integrated with existing payment infrastructure.
Lesson
Banks can turn tokenisation into a real client product when controls, distribution and operating readiness are built together, not sequenced after the technology.
What Digital Settlement Studio learns from all four
- Client use case first
- Integrate with existing treasury operations
- Scale through controlled corridors
- Ensure legal, compliance and operations are ready
- Do not confuse pilot activity with commercial product-market fit
Product-manager decision log
Why the roadmap sequences the way it does
Why start with intrabank tokenised treasury rather than public-chain stablecoin payments?
- Clearer client relationship and onboarding
- Controlled entitlements
- Familiar commercial-bank money
- Simpler early operating model
- Phased path toward interoperability
Why partner for specialist custody rather than build it?
- Specialist key-management and custody capability
- Independent controls
- Faster time to market
- Requires vendor due diligence, resilience testing and an exit plan
Why use DvP only after treasury use cases are proven?
- DvP requires coordination across cash, asset, custody, legal and market-infrastructure legs
- Higher operational and legal complexity
- Treasury use cases validate the underlying digital-money control model first