, an affiliate of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba, plans to apply for a license to issue stablecoins in Hong Kong through its overseas arm Ant International, the subsidiary said in a statement on Thursday. Last month, Hong Kong's legislature passed a stablecoin bill that establishes a licensing regime for fiat-referenced stablecoin issuers in Hong Kong.

Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually pegged to a fiat currency such as the U.S. dollar, are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens.

"We plan to apply for the fiat-referenced stablecoins (FRS) issuer's license once the process is open after the Stablecoins Ordinance takes effect on August 1," Ant International said in a statement.

The move was first reported by Bloomberg News, which also said Ant would seek to apply for a stablecoin licenses in Singapore and Luxembourg as well.

Ant was founded by billionaire Jack Ma and is 33% controlled by Alibaba. It operates China's ubiquitous mobile payments app Alipay.