12 November 2025

Linklaters advises on the Hong Kong SAR Government’s largest ever digital green bonds offering

Linklaters advised the joint lead managers and the fiscal agent on the successful offering of approximately HK$10bn multi-currency (comprising USD, Euro, HKD and RMB) digital green bonds by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (HKSAR Government) under the Government Sustainable Bond Programme. 

The latest digital bond issuance by the HKSAR Government marks another milestone in its bond tokenisation journey, following its inaugural tokenised green bonds offering in 2023 and the first ever multi-currency digital green bonds issuance in 2024, both of which Linklaters had also advised on. 

Retaining the key innovative features of the previous issuance, the multi-currency digital green bonds are issued in a digitally native format using HSBC Orion*, which enables wider investor access by connecting to traditional clearing and settlement platforms via the Central Moneymarkets Unit’s (CMU), as well as access to green bond disclosures on the digital assets platform. The digital green bonds are listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited.
 
The latest issuance achieved significant milestones, becoming the world’s first digital bond offering to integrate tokenised central bank money (e-CNY and e-HKD) into the primary settlement process, further reducing settlement time, costs, and counterparty credit risk. In addition, all bonds were assigned Digital Token Identifiers (DTIs) in accordance with the International Organisation for Standardisation’s ISO 24165’s standard and the issuance also expanded on the adoption of International Capital Market Association’s Bond Data Taxonomy, thereby improving interoperability and fostering end-to-end automation.


Linklaters’ multidisciplinary and cross-jurisdictional team was led by capital markets partner Michael Ng, with support from financial regulation partner Kishore Bhindi, capital markets counsel Grace Wee and solicitor Lily Wang. Capital markets counsel Beibei Ding acted as legal adviser to the fiscal agent.

Michael Ng, partner at Linklaters, commented:

“We are honoured to have supported the HKSAR Government on this landmark transaction. The successful use of tokenised central bank money to settle government green and sustainable bonds sets a new benchmark for the commercial adoption of tokenisation in Asia. This project illustrates how robust digital asset solutions are accelerating market development and further establishing Hong Kong as a leading centre for asset digitalisation and green finance in the region.”
*HSBC Orion refers to the distributed ledger technology platform deployed by HSBC to the CMU as the platform operator for the purposes of, among other things, recording, clearing and settling the digital green bonds.