The Asian Banker Summit 2026

Beyond Borders – Financing Growth in a Fragmented World

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Reimagining Finance Beyond Borders

Cross-border finance is being reshaped by geopolitical realignment, regional trade corridors and divergent regulatory regimes. As payment systems, data rules and settlement infrastructures fragment, financial institutions face growing pressure to move money, manage liquidity and support trade across markets that no longer operate on common standards.

Beyond Borders explores how financial infrastructure is being rebuilt across regions. Sessions examine cross-border instant payments and ISO 20022, data localisation and global compliance, wholesale CBDCs and tokenised deposits, digital identity and trust frameworks, and the future of interoperable payment and settlement networks. The focus is on reconnecting systems, restoring efficiency and enabling secure, scalable growth in a more fragmented global economy.

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Beyond Borders – Financing Growth in a Fragmented World

Thursday, 14 May 2026
  • 08:30 – 09:00

    Registration and Morning Networking

  • 09:00 – 09:40

    Global financial flows in flux - fragmentation, geopolitics and remaking of trade corridors

    This session examines how geopolitical tension, economic fragmentation and the growth of new trade corridors are changing the flow of capital, goods and payments. It will look at how banks, treasurers and corporates are adjusting transaction finance strategies to protect liquidity, manage risk and support growth in a more divided trading system.

    • How geopolitical and macroeconomic shifts are changing cross-border finance and payment flows
    • The rise of regional and South–South trade corridors and what this means for settlement, liquidity and financing models
    • Managing liquidity, FX, sanctions and compliance risks across more fragmented markets
    • How transaction banks and corporates are adapting working capital, cash management and trade finance strategies
    • Where the next growth regions and corridor opportunities are emerging for banks and their clients
    Panellists Included:
    • Sebastien Avot, Managing Director, Regional Head Institutional Cash & Trade, Asia-Pacific, Deutsche Bank
    • Devashis Das, Managing Director, head of Planning, Marketing & Transformation, Global Transaction Banking APAC, Mizuho Bank
    • Gary Ng, Senior Economist, Natixis
    Chaired by:
    • Mathew Welch, International Director, TAB Global
  • 09:40 – 10:40

    Who runs the rails? Interlinking ASEAN’s payment systems

    As domestic instant payment systems across ASEAN are increasingly interconnected, the role of payment system operators has become critical. This session brings together the organisations that run these rails to discuss the governance, settlement, risk and operational realities of linking national payment infrastructures into a regional network.

    • From domestic instant payments to regional interoperability
    • Governance and operating models for interlinked payment systems
    • Settlement, liquidity and risk management in always-on rails
    • What comes next beyond QR and P2P payments
    Panellists Included:
    • Lawrence Chan, Group CEO, NETS
    • Andrew McCormack, CEO, Nexus Global Payments
    • Monica Jasuja, Chief Expansion & Innovation Officer, Emerging Payments Association Asia
    Chaired by:
    • T.S Shankar, Asia Representative, BAFT
  • 10:40 – 11:15

    Account-to-account is scaling fast and changing the economics of payments

    Account-to-account payments and real-time rails are no longer alternative options — they are becoming core infrastructure. As volumes shift away from card-based systems, the economics of payments are being rewritten. Without interchange as a default revenue model, banks, fintechs and schemes are being forced to rethink how value is created, priced and captured across the payment journey.

    • How instant A2A networks are scaling across domestic and cross-border use cases
    • Monetisation without interchange and where new revenue pools are emerging
    • Overlay services such as request-to-pay, data, identity and financing
    • The impact on cards, wallets and traditional acquiring models
    • Who controls customer access and transaction flow in an A2A world
    Panellists Included:
    • Andrew McCormack, CEO, Nexus Global Payments
    • Priyanka Madan, Head of Payments & Ecosystem, GX Bank
    • Babu Vaidyanathan, Head of Commercial Cards, Asia Pacific and Southeast Asia Treasury Product, Bank of America
    Chaired by:
    • Sandeep Sethi, International Resource Director, TAB Global
  • 11:15 – 11:45

    Networking Break

  • 11:45 – 12:45

    Will CBDCs, stablecoins and deposit tokens rewrite the rules of money?

    Stablecoins, CBDCs and tokenised deposits are moving from experimentation to practical use, raising important questions about how money, payments and settlement may evolve. This session explores how public and private forms of digital money could reshape cross-border payments, liquidity management and the role of commercial banks.

    Discussion themes include:
    • The rise of stablecoins and deposit tokens in payments, settlement and treasury flows
    • How banks, fintechs and payment networks are integrating digital money into cross-border use cases
    • Interoperability between stablecoins, CBDCs, deposit tokens and existing payment systems
    • Regulatory implications for monetary stability, risk and oversight
    • The future role of commercial banks in a programmable money ecosystem
    Panellists Included:
    • James Chan, Head of Transaction Banking & Controls, ZA Bank
    • Dr. Wong Tze Yow, Board Director, Wavpay
    • Chengyi Ong, Director, APAC Policy and Regulatory Strategy, Circle
    • Heng Wang, Professor of Law, Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore Management University
    • Wee Kee Toh, Global Head of Insights, Kinexys by J.P. Morgan
    Chaired by:
    • Sandeep Sethi, International Resource Director, TAB Global
  • 12:45 – 13:00

    Orchestrating SME Transactions: The Rise of the SME Ecosystem

    The rise of digital platforms, marketplaces and social commerce is fundamentally changing how SMEs transact, get paid and access financial services. Platforms are increasingly embedding payments and financing directly into their ecosystems, shifting control away from traditional banks. This session examines how SME payment flows are evolving and what it means for banks competing to stay relevant.

    Presented by:
    • Richard Prayoga, Head of Wholesale Transaction Project Transformation, Bank Negara Indonesia
  • 13:00– 14:00

    Networking Luncheon

  • 14:00 – 14:40

    Rebuilding financial infrastructure across regions

    This session explores how global financial infrastructure is being reshaped amid fragmentation, digitalisation, and the rise of new trade corridors. The discussion will highlight what a more connected, interoperable, and resilient ecosystem could look like in the coming decade.

    • Reconfiguring clearing and settlement systems
    • Interlinking real-time payment systems beyond borders
    • Pathways from RTP interlinking to wholesale cross-border payments
    • Regionalisation vs. globalisation in financial infrastructure
    • Harnessing technology for interoperability and resilience
    • Strategic role of banks and fintechs in rebuilding networks
    Panellist Included:
    • Gregory Kavanaugh, MD; Global Product Head, Global Core Cash Management, Bank of America
    • Rebekah Wong, Head of Payments, ASEAN, J.P. Morgan
    Chaired by:
    • Siddharth Chandani, Senior Research Analyst, TAB Global
  • 14:40 – 15:30

    Making money move like the internet

    This session explores the vision of frictionless, instant, and borderless money movement. It will look at how banks, fintechs, and regulators can collaborate to achieve seamless financial connectivity.

    • Building an “internet of value” for money flows
    • Real-time, low-cost global payments infrastructure
    • Ensuring security, compliance, and trust at scale
    • Balancing innovation with financial stability
    Panellist Included:
    • Raj Raman, Director, Market Manager, International Payments Product, Global Payments & Trade APAC, BNY
    • Prof. Nafis Alam, Professor & Head of School, Malaysia School of Business
    • Olivier Anceau, MD and APAC Head, Specialized Products Sales, Global Payments Solutions, Bank of America
    Chaired by:
    • Gaurav Zutshi , Head, Digital Platforms; Group Transaction Banking, CIMB
  • 15:30 – 16:00

    Networking Break

  • 16:30

    Closing Keynote – Day 2

    From the AI Bank to AI-Native Economies

    YB Gobind Singh Deo, Minister of Digital, Malaysia, will close the Summit by widening the discussion from the AI bank to the AI-native economy. His keynote will explore how finance, digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, governance, talent and regional connectivity must come together to build trusted, inclusive and competitive digital economies.

    The session will position banks not only as adopters of AI, but as key enablers of the next digital era.

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Zand Bank CEO makes the case for integrated hybrid banking as the only viable path forward

  • Zand Bank outlined a hybrid transaction banking model integrating fiat and digital assets within a single institutional framework covering risk, treasury, legal and operations.
  • Hybrid banking models are integrating fiat and digital assets within a single framework covering risk, treasury, legal and operations.
  • Stablecoin-powered cross-border payments were described as reducing costs by 90% and settlement times by 95%, while tokenised trade finance letters of credit were reduced from days to four hours and AI-driven reconciliation cut manual effort by 80%.
  • The bank stated it had issued the first regulated dirham stablecoin across multiple blockchains in January 2026 and operates under licences from the Central Bank of the UAE and the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.
  • Key priorities discussed included modernising infrastructure for real-time and cloud-native operations, creating unified governance across fiat and digital assets, redesigning treasury for multi-asset liquidity management, building talent across banking, AI and blockchain, and engaging regulators early in the transition.

Tokenisation can reduce unnecessary friction in transaction banking, but "frictionless" is neither achievable nor desirable

  • Transaction banking still relies on multiple intermediaries, cut-off times, manual reconciliation and paper-heavy trade finance processes, creating operational friction and liquidity inefficiencies.
  • Tokenised deposits, stablecoins and interoperable ledgers can enable faster cross-border payments, real-time liquidity management, programmable settlement and more efficient collateral movement across markets and time zones.
  • Tokenised payment undertakings are being used to extend supply chain financing deeper into supplier networks, while tokenisation in cards is already operating at scale with around 160 million tokens issued annually.
  • AML checks, sanctions screening, fraud prevention, legal controls and governance frameworks remain necessary, with the discussion concluding that the objective is reducing unnecessary friction rather than creating a fully frictionless system.
  • Major barriers to large-scale adoption include interoperability between traditional and tokenised infrastructure, integration into existing banking systems, fragmented regulations across jurisdictions, coordination between market participants, and cybersecurity and operational risks.

Tokenisation can reduce unnecessary friction in transaction banking, but "frictionless" is neither achievable nor desirable

  • Transaction banking still relies on multiple intermediaries, cut-off times, manual reconciliation and paper-heavy trade finance processes, creating operational friction and liquidity inefficiencies.
  • Tokenised deposits, stablecoins and interoperable ledgers can enable faster cross-border payments, real-time liquidity management, programmable settlement and more efficient collateral movement across markets and time zones.
  • Tokenised payment undertakings are being used to extend supply chain financing deeper into supplier networks, while tokenisation in cards is already operating at scale with around 160 million tokens issued annually.
  • AML checks, sanctions screening, fraud prevention, legal controls and governance frameworks remain necessary, with the discussion concluding that the objective is reducing unnecessary friction rather than creating a fully frictionless system.
  • Major barriers to large-scale adoption include interoperability between traditional and tokenised infrastructure, integration into existing banking systems, fragmented regulations across jurisdictions, coordination between market participants, and cybersecurity and operational risks.

ISO 20022 migration deemed a success, but enriched data dividends remain largely unrealised

  • ISO 20022 migration has been completed, but the expected benefits from enriched data remain limited, with only around 1% of MX traffic carrying enriched data and limited impact on AML and straight-through processing systems so far.
  • Structured messaging is beginning to show benefits, including reported reductions of more than 30% in false positives for some users, but the overall data dividend is expected to emerge gradually.
  • Cross-border payment interoperability remains constrained by regulatory barriers, particularly around processing payments with one leg outside domestic jurisdictions, making bilateral linkages complex and difficult to scale across regions such as ASEAN.
  • Existing bilateral payment linkages (e.g., Hong Kong–Thailand and Hong Kong–China) were described as operationally difficult to implement and not easily scalable, while multilateral frameworks such as Nexus and Swift interoperability initiatives are viewed as more promising but still face unresolved challenges for wholesale use cases.
  • The future of cross-border payments is expected to be defined by coexistence of multiple rails rather than replacement of legacy systems, with fragmentation, harmonisation, and modular infrastructure development shaping how banks support corporates in a multi-rail environment.

Tokenised deposits and stablecoins are live and reshaping competitive dynamics for banks

  • Tokenised deposits and stablecoins are already live and are reshaping cross-border liquidity and competitive dynamics in transaction banking.
  • Client demand is shifting toward certainty over efficiency, full visibility of trapped cash, and stronger stress-testing of liquidity buffers, alongside expectations for near real-time cross-border settlement.
  • Correspondent banking is under pressure as payments move through multiple intermediaries, while current tokenised deposit models remain largely limited to intraclient or intra-group cross-border transfers rather than cross-bank settlement.
  • Stablecoin and tokenisation infrastructure is already handling large flows outside traditional banking rails, with one platform moving about $45 billion monthly in stablecoin transactions for payment companies.
  • The outlook points to direct cross-border payment models, bank–fintech partnerships, regional liquidity pools, interoperability, and embedded finance, with blockchain expected to become standard infrastructure rather than a standalone innovation.

Most companies don't have a liquidity problem, but a visibility problem

  • The global trade finance gap is about $2.5 trillion, with SMEs in markets like Malaysia and Thailand facing significant financing shortfalls, while supply chains often shift liquidity pressure onto smaller suppliers through extended payment terms.
  • A large share of SME balance sheets is tied up in inventories and receivables (around 40%), meaning many firms do not face a cash shortage but lack visibility over where liquidity is trapped across supply chains.
  • Supply chain finance programmes remain under-penetrated, with large corporate programmes covering only a small fraction of total suppliers (e.g., tens of thousands enrolled out of more than 100,000 in some cases), leaving a long tail of unfinanced suppliers.
  • Effective scaling of supply chain finance requires stronger buyer-side commitment, integration with corporate procurement systems (including “headless” architecture models), and commercial engagement rather than relying on onboarding or technology alone.
  • AI tools are being used for onboarding and cash forecasting, but effectiveness depends on high-quality underlying data, and unlocking trapped cash ultimately requires a combination of risk-sharing, visibility, fintech collaboration and treasury discipline rather than a single solution.

Banks have three years to quantum-proof their systems, and AI governance frameworks are not ready for what comes next

  • AI compute demand is rising rapidly as agentic AI systems interact with other agents, increasing token consumption exponentially and forcing banks to actively manage and optimise compute usage to control costs.
  • Banks are estimated to have roughly three years to migrate toward post-quantum cryptography ahead of a potential “Q-day” around 2029, while much existing financial data remains exposed to “harvest now, decrypt later” risks.
  • AI-driven cybersecurity threats are intensifying, with attackers increasingly using large language models to identify vulnerabilities autonomously, making traditional human-led security response models too slow.
  • Dependence on third-party AI models creates operational and geopolitical risks, reinforcing the importance of AI sovereignty, proprietary infrastructure and locally hosted open-source models for resilience.
  • AI agents are expected to handle a growing share of banking transactions over the next decade, increasing pressure on banks to develop AI-native infrastructure, governance frameworks, hardcoded controls and automated guardrails for decision-making systems.

AI Scaling Will Transform Banking Through Compute, Security, and Agentic Economies

  • AI is scaling from foundation models to world models that predict real-world states, requiring massive and rapidly growing compute power, with hardware advancing from multi-year to yearly architecture cycles.
  • Generative AI works by probabilistically predicting next words, producing emergent behaviors including hallucinations, which are not fully explainable but widely adopted across industries including banking.
  • AI is moving into autonomous science, discovery, robotics, sports analytics, and enterprise applications, while agentic AI is rapidly expanding across industries and enabling automated decision systems.
  • Financial systems are shifting toward AI-to-AI economies where agents conduct payments, commerce, and financial decisions, requiring banks to support machine customers and AI-native APIs.
  • AI security, governance, and sovereignty are becoming critical as quantum computing, autonomous cyberattacks, and geopolitical fragmentation force banks to adopt post-quantum encryption, AI-driven defence, and strict AI control frameworks.

Banks Prepare for Operational Deployment of Agentic AI

  • Banks are using agentic AI to automate customer service, complaints handling and operational workflows, while also using AI systems to identify inconsistent or undocumented business processes before automation.
  • AI deployment requires leadership alignment, structured and unstructured data readiness, governance frameworks, risk management, scalable infrastructure, operating model redesign and workforce capability development before production rollout.
  • Financial institutions are adopting different AI models for different use cases, balancing model intelligence, latency, token costs, orchestration requirements and operational efficiency rather than relying on a single frontier model.
  • Agentic AI deployment requires continuous monitoring, governance controls, human escalation paths and oversight mechanisms to manage model drift, process changes and customer-facing risks.
  • Banks are measuring AI performance through productivity improvements, operational efficiency gains, customer interaction handling, call deflection, revenue generation, average handling time reductions and broader return-on-investment metrics across AI use cases.

Future Bank Working Group Covers AI Governance, Data Quality, Real-Time Banking and AI Transformation Risks

  • Future Bank Working Group introduced as a member-driven platform for senior banking leaders focused on AI, digital assets, liquidity, cybersecurity, benchmarking, research, and workshops.
  • AI governance and risk management highlighted, with emphasis on defining risk appetite upfront and establishing guardrails to prevent unintended AI-driven actions.
  • Data quality identified as critical, with focus on standardized data, lineage tracking, and resolving inconsistencies to prevent AI errors and system “indigestion.”
  • Banking transformation priorities discussed, including real-time 24/7 processing, modernization of legacy systems, zero-trust cybersecurity, and improved customer journeys.
  • AI adoption challenges addressed, including productivity gains from AI coding, model drift risks, deepfakes, human-in-the-loop oversight, and alignment of AI with business ROI and strategy.

Beyond Digital Banking Advances Toward Agentic AI, Real-Time Economy and Domain-Specific AI Systems

  • Agentic AI is positioned as the next phase of digital transformation, enabling real-time, autonomous, and scalable economic systems beyond traditional digital banking.
  • China’s “real-time economy” model, driven by instant retail and ultra-fast logistics, demonstrates end-to-end value chain transformation enabled by AI, data, and cloud infrastructure.
  • Financial services are expected to evolve toward real-time, dynamic credit and working capital systems based on live operational data such as inventory (SKU) and supply chain activity.
  • Open-source AI models, combined with domain-specific fine-tuned models, are emphasized for transparency, compliance, sovereignty, and cost efficiency in banking AI deployment.
  • Large-scale AI adoption requires strong engineering capability, including cloud migration, core banking modernization, and structured domain knowledge integration to achieve enterprise-wide scale and high adoption.

Designing trusted open finance in an agentic, cross-border economy

  • Agentic finance requires transparency, observability, and clear accountability across chains of AI agents, especially as agents interact autonomously across institutions and borders.
  • Existing AI governance principles remain relevant, but agentic AI introduces new risks around hallucinations, cybersecurity, delegated authority, and unclear liability between developers, operators, and owners of agents.
  • Legacy financial infrastructure and liability frameworks are poorly suited for autonomous agents because current systems are built around explicit human intent, transaction-by-transaction authorisation, and deterministic controls.
  • Regulators and industry participants see standards, interoperability, compliance-by-design, and risk-sensitive governance as essential guardrails, with practical limits such as spend caps, deterministic rules, consent models, and detailed audit logs likely to shape early deployments.
  • The panel viewed agentic finance as inevitable but still immature: fragmentation remains high, standards are unresolved, and the industry is expected to consolidate around a smaller number of trusted frameworks, platforms, and enterprise-grade agents over time.

From blockchain to programmable money: value is shifting from experimentation to live financial infrastructure

  • Programmable money is evolving across four models: central bank digital currencies, tokenised deposits, tokenised assets, and stablecoins, with regulators increasingly moving from sandbox testing toward live implementation.
  • Regulators and banks are converging around a hybrid model where central banks oversee frameworks while commercial banks distribute programmable money products, particularly tokenised deposits and stablecoins.
  • Cross-border payments remain the primary commercial use case, with banks and fintechs using blockchain infrastructure to enable faster settlement, 24/7 liquidity movement, reduced correspondent banking friction, and more transparent transaction tracking.
  • Stablecoins and tokenised deposits are increasingly viewed as practical infrastructure rather than speculative assets, especially for internal bank liquidity transfers, programmable payments, and real-time funding across markets.
  • The panel argued that programmable money is becoming a competitive necessity: banks that fail to build capabilities in blockchain, AI-driven commerce, and real-time settlement risk being outpaced as financial infrastructure shifts toward programmable, always-on transaction models.

Data, Governance and AI Readiness in Banking

  • Banks identified high-quality, contextualised and governed data as the foundation for AI deployment, warning that fragmented systems and unclear data ownership create scaling and trust issues.
  • Digital banks described using alternative data sources including device signals, behavioural navigation patterns and third-party information to support credit scoring, fraud detection and lending decisions in markets with limited traditional credit bureau coverage.
  • Speakers stressed that AI deployment requires strong governance frameworks, including human oversight, access controls, accountability structures, cybersecurity safeguards and alignment with emerging regulatory standards across markets including Malaysia, Singapore and Australia.
  • Banks and fintech firms highlighted the growing use of AI-powered fraud detection, document forensics and cybersecurity testing, with human reviewers remaining part of approval and decision-making loops for customer-facing activities.
  • Panelists said banks are moving from data-driven and predictive banking toward agent-driven banking, where AI systems can recommend actions and generate insights autonomously, while customer-facing decisions remain constrained by policy controls and human supervision.

Autonomous Agents Reshape Banking While Preserving Trust, Control and Accountability

  • Autonomous agents and AI in banking must be deployed with trust and regulatory compliance as non-negotiable foundations, alongside efficiency and revenue upside as secondary benefits.
  • AI-driven automation can significantly improve onboarding, lending, servicing and customer experience, but failures (eKYC errors, misinterpreted instructions, system outages) can directly impact customer access and trust.
  • Technology introduces scaling risks: once autonomous systems make an error, the impact can propagate quickly across operations if not properly constrained and governed.
  • Human bankers remain essential due to capabilities AI lacks, including contextual judgement, moral reasoning, motivation detection, and situational accountability in real-world customer interactions.
  • Effective deployment requires strict access control, human-in-the-loop oversight for customer-facing decisions, and the principle that banks remain accountable even when AI executes actions.

Global financial flows in flux — Navigating fragmentation, geopolitics, and new trade corridors

  • The discussion described global financial flows as becoming more fragmented due to tariffs, sanctions, geopolitical rivalry, regionalisation, war, and supply-chain diversification away from traditional trade corridors.
  • Corporate decision-making was described as shifting from pure profit maximisation toward balancing efficiency with resilience, risk management, and diversification across markets, currencies, and supply chains.
  • Southeast Asia, India, Africa, the Gulf, and South-South trade corridors were described as gaining importance, with banks supporting clients through liquidity management, trade finance, FX management, compliance, and working-capital solutions across new corridors.
  • Treasury priorities were described as moving toward real-time visibility, proactive risk management, supply-chain monitoring, liquidity buffers, and managing volatility, sanctions exposure, and cross-border operational complexity.
  • The session described growing use of local-currency settlement and renminbi flows alongside continued dollar dominance, while technology developments including APIs, AI, stablecoins, CBDCs, and new clearing systems were presented as reshaping payments, liquidity, and international financial infrastructure.

Who Runs the Rails - Interlinking ASEAN’s Payment Systems (Beyond Borders)

  • Cross-border payment interoperability was discussed as a competitive and strategic infrastructure issue, with payment rails becoming more valuable as more payment and receiving points are connected across markets.
  • The session highlighted efforts to connect instant payment systems across countries through automated orchestration layers, while noting differences in standards, governance models and technical integration across payment networks.
  • QR payment adoption accelerated significantly during and after COVID-19, increasing merchant and consumer acceptance in domestic markets, while governments and regulators were identified as major drivers of interoperability and digital payment adoption.
  • Discussion covered access to payment rails for fintechs, lower-cost cross-border commerce, financial inclusion, interoperability with China payment ecosystems, and the growing role of bilateral and regional payment linkages across ASEAN and beyond.
  • The session also addressed fraud, cybersecurity, stablecoins, interoperability challenges, geopolitical fragmentation and the long-term goal of making cross-border payments seamless and largely invisible to consumers and merchants.

Account-to-account is scaling fast and changing the economics of payments (Beyond Borders)

  • Account-to-account and real-time payments were described as becoming core payment infrastructure, with bilateral links supporting major corridors but broader interoperability needed for full cross-border connectivity.
  • Growth in account-to-account payments was linked to cashless adoption, mobile access, QR acceptance, embedded app payments, and recurring use cases such as subscriptions and pull payments.
  • Regulators and central banks were described as driving adoption through infrastructure, interoperability, consumer protection, licensing, and fraud management frameworks.
  • Fraud prevention was discussed across consumer and corporate payments through education, network monitoring, mule-account detection, coordinated response systems, and real-time intervention tools.
  • Payment models including account-to-account transfers, cards, and wallets were described as coexisting, with revenue opportunities shifting toward data-driven services, reconciliation, embedded finance, reporting, and customer engagement.

Orchestrating SME Transactions - The Rise of the SME Ecosystem

  • SMEs were described as the backbone of Indonesia’s economy, contributing around 60% of GDP and operating increasingly through marketplaces, digital platforms, logistics networks and social commerce ecosystems.
  • Banking was described as shifting from a standalone destination for payments and financing to an embedded capability within transaction flows, ERP systems, platforms and ecosystem applications.
  • The session identified disintermediation, visibility and relevance risks for banks as platforms increasingly control customer interaction, transaction data, payment behaviour and financing access.
  • Banks were described as retaining core advantages in trust, compliance, liquidity management, payment infrastructure, regulatory governance and cross-border connectivity, despite ecosystem-led competition.
  • The discussion highlighted ecosystem integration, API connectivity, banking-as-a-service, AI-powered financial services and modular digital infrastructure as key directions for the future of SME transaction banking.

Rebuilding financial infrastructure across regions

  • Cross-border financial infrastructure remains fragmented by borders, currencies, regulations and settlement windows despite increasingly global and digital trade, payments and business activity.
  • Banks are modernising payment infrastructure through ISO 20022 data standards, 24/7 operating models, real-time payments, blockchain integration and tokenisation while continuing to rely on existing rails.
  • Regulatory harmonisation, interoperability and standardised data were identified as necessary to improve transparency, compliance, settlement efficiency and cross-border connectivity at scale.
  • Stablecoins, tokenised assets and blockchain infrastructure were discussed as complementary to existing banking systems for faster settlement, digital asset access and cross-border value transfer, while still requiring trust, liquidity and regulatory oversight.
  • Trust, fraud prevention, compliance and security remained central themes, with AI expected to play a growing role in transaction monitoring, treasury operations and cross-border payment infrastructure.

Will CBDCs - stablecoins and deposit tokens rewrite the rules of money

  • Stablecoins, tokenised deposits, and CBDCs were described as having moved from experimentation into active use, with live deployments cited across Hong Kong and Malaysia including newly issued stablecoin licences, a completed tokenised sukuk, and a blockchain payments network settling billions of dollars daily.
  • Cross-border payments and treasury management were identified as the primary use cases for stablecoins, with the "stablecoin sandwich" structure — fiat on either end and stablecoin for the cross-border leg — actively used by payment service providers to reduce pre-funding, manage liquidity, and settle faster across corridors.
  • USD-denominated and local currency stablecoins were described as serving complementary roles, with local currency stablecoins seen as necessary for domestic payments, tokenised financial markets, and preserving monetary sovereignty, while regulatory frameworks across major economies were noted as increasingly restricting foreign-issued stablecoins.
  • Regulatory ambiguity, AML and source-of-funds gaps, lack of dispute resolution mechanisms, user trust, and emergent systemic risks from programmable and automated payment systems were identified as the key barriers to broader digital money adoption.
  • Public blockchains were discussed as the foundation for interoperability, enabling multiple asset tokens to transact on shared infrastructure, with regulatory appetite described as gradually improving — supported by large institutions demonstrating compliant usage and publishing industry risk frameworks — pointing to a near-term inflection point for digital money.

Making money move like the internet

  • Cross-border payments were described as more complex than internet data transfers because they require compliance checks, regulatory controls, payment purpose validation, and supporting transaction data to move together with the payment.
  • Regulatory fragmentation, currency controls, differing national rules, inconsistent payment codes, and varying interpretations of standards across jurisdictions were identified as key sources of friction in cross-border payments.
  • Regional instant payment networks and Nexus were discussed as efforts to connect domestic real-time payment systems, while challenges remain around harmonising compliance, regulation, liquidity management, and data standards across multiple countries.
  • Stablecoins, blockchain, fintechs, and alternative payment channels were discussed as potential ways to improve cross-border efficiency, liquidity management, and customer choice, alongside ongoing concerns around trust, regulation, monetary policy, and interoperability.
  • Innovation in cross-border payments was described as already progressing through instant payment systems, AI, fintech collaboration, and open finance, while harmonisation, richer data sharing, compliance, and customer protection were identified as continuing requirements for faster and more seamless global payments.

Closing Keynote - From the AI Bank to AI-Native Economies

  • The future of banking was framed as inseparable from the future of economies, with AI moving from a tool used by banks to infrastructure that enables businesses to grow, payments to move securely, and consumers to trust new digital systems.
  • Malaysia's digital economy contributes close to a quarter of GDP, with 144 billion Ringgit in data centre and cloud investments approved since 2021 and a national target to reach 30% of GDP by 2030, backed by legislation on cybersecurity, data protection, and data sharing passed since 2024.
  • A dedicated Ministry of Digital was established because no single government agency existed to drive cross-ministry digital transformation, with a National AI Office set up to engage each sector individually and translate those conversations into policy.
  • Data was identified as the core challenge, with much of it still undigitised within government, and cross-ministry data sharing, a Data Commission, and a Government Innovation Initiative described as the mechanisms to address it.
  • The transition was described as fundamental and not incremental, shifting from process optimisation to data-driven decisions and from business-to-consumer to agent-to-agent models, with the AI bank defined as an institution that does not yet exist and must be built from a clean slate.

Beyond Digital Banking Advances Toward Agentic AI, Real-Time Economy and Domain-Specific AI Systems

  • Agentic AI is positioned as the next phase of digital transformation, enabling real-time, autonomous, and scalable economic systems beyond traditional digital banking.
  • China’s “real-time economy” model, driven by instant retail and ultra-fast logistics, demonstrates end-to-end value chain transformation enabled by AI, data, and cloud infrastructure.
  • Financial services are expected to evolve toward real-time, dynamic credit and working capital systems based on live operational data such as inventory (SKU) and supply chain activity.
  • Open-source AI models, combined with domain-specific fine-tuned models, are emphasized for transparency, compliance, sovereignty, and cost efficiency in banking AI deployment.
  • Large-scale AI adoption requires strong engineering capability, including cloud migration, core banking modernization, and structured domain knowledge integration to achieve enterprise-wide scale and high adoption.

Banking in the AI economy and the strategies that will keep institutions(Financial Tech)

  • AI adoption is accelerating through co-pilots, vendor upgrades and embedded functionality, increasing the need for governance, observability and controls around unmanaged AI in banking environments.
  • Banks are using AI to reduce processing times, automate document scrutiny, improve customer servicing and support contextual engagement across channels using customer, transaction and interaction data.
  • AI deployment is being positioned around productivity, efficiency, fraud prevention, risk mitigation and scalability, while recognising that some optimisation challenges may be better addressed through process redesign, automation or removing outdated workflows rather than applying AI by default.
  • Institutions are focusing on building agile capabilities, governance frameworks and interoperable architectures that allow systems and components to be replaced or upgraded without major disruption as technology and business requirements evolve.
  • The discussion highlighted uncertainty around how banking will evolve over the next five years, with emphasis on phased transformation, organisational agility, operational resilience and preparing institutions to adapt to rapid technological change rather than relying on long-term predictions.

Governing AI in Finance for Trust, Transparency and Regulatory Confidence (Financial Tech)

  • The session focused on AI governance in banking, including regulatory expectations, supervisory priorities, risk management and responsible AI adoption across financial institutions.
  • Key concerns discussed included non-deterministic generative AI outputs, hallucination risks, misinformation, data governance, model risk management, transparency, accountability and human oversight in financial decision-making.
  • Regulators described principles-based and risk-based approaches that balance innovation with consumer protection, while considering future regulatory amendments, liability structures and international cooperation on AI governance.
  • AI adoption frameworks highlighted included operational risk management guidance, industry collaboration, AI implementation support programs and governance processes covering the full AI lifecycle from design to ongoing monitoring and audit.
  • Central bank AI usage included forecasting, sentiment analysis, fraud detection, risk monitoring, document intelligence, chatbots and knowledge assistants, supported by data governance, AI literacy, lifecycle management, risk classification and hybrid cloud infrastructure.

How Web3 is Unlocking the Promise of DeFi and Tokenised Finance (Financial Tech)

  • Institutional Web3 and tokenised assets have moved beyond experimentation into early adoption, with DeFi converging with traditional finance through tokenised money market funds, sovereign sukuk issuances, and tokenised deposits, with Southeast Asian markets such as Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia seeing the strongest momentum.
  • High-value physical asset transactions are an emerging use case, with growing demand for trusted platforms to facilitate transfers involving assets such as ships, requiring escrow capability, custody licensing, and legal frameworks that tie physical assets to their tokenised representations.
  • Responsible innovation is a prerequisite for scaling tokenised finance, spanning sustainable blockchain infrastructure, non-speculative business models, privacy-enhancing technologies, financial inclusion through asset fractionalisation, and monitoring of systemic risk as DeFi's share of total financial markets grows.
  • Agentic AI combined with blockchain is seen as a high-potential pairing, with blockchain providing decentralised identity, immutable audit trails, and secure transaction mechanisms for AI agents, while accountability gaps, model bias, and vulnerability to adversarial attacks remain the key risks to address.
  • Regulators are becoming increasingly technical and sandbox-driven to keep pace with accelerating technology cycles, with the path forward framed as integration rather than disruption, combining the trust and credibility of traditional finance with the efficiency of blockchain, smart contracts, and AI.

Modernizing Legacy Systems for Efficiency, Innovation, and an AI-Driven Future (Financial Tech)

  • The session draws on insights from engagements with over 70 financial services organisations globally across banking and insurance, highlighting consistent challenges in modernising legacy systems while enabling AI adoption.
  • Organisations face simultaneous pressure to improve operational efficiency, reduce cost to serve, accelerate product innovation, enhance customer experience, and respond to increasing AI, regulatory, and cybersecurity demands.
  • Legacy technology environments with tightly coupled monolithic architectures and fragmented data structures constrain change, slow innovation, and limit the ability to scale AI beyond proof of concept stages, creating a gap between AI ambition and production deployment.
  • Modernisation is framed as shifting away from large, multi-year replacement programmes toward continuous incremental capability building using modular architectures, APIs, real time data foundations, and embedded governance, security, and observability.
  • Effective AI enabled transformation depends on three core pillars, data, governance, and culture, alongside governance as code approaches including AI agent oversight frameworks such as KYA, with modernisation positioned as a business imperative enabling scalable AI adoption.

Rebuilding the Payments Stack for Invisible Finance (Financial Tech)

  • Invisible finance is about being customer centric, with innovations such as customisable card numbers, gamified reward schemes, and stock-back programmes embedding engagement and wealth building directly into the payment journey.
  • Agentic payments require a trust framework across the merchant and issuer ecosystem, with network tokens as the foundation for agentic commerce and top-of-wallet positioning becoming critical as agents make payments on behalf of customers.
  • Legacy banks can innovate by selecting specific use cases and migrating them to modular platforms, with flexible credential technology allowing credit, debit, loyalty, and investment funding sources to sit behind a single card number.
  • Africa leapfrogged the card revolution through mobile money, which is now converging with global card rails, while a Fintech Passporting framework across Ghana and Rwanda is beginning to address the regulatory fragmentation that has limited investment across the continent.
  • Innovation in payments should be incremental, maintaining or improving the existing customer experience with minimal business disruption, with modular architecture as the practical path forward for both new and legacy institutions.

Creating Value Beyond Transactions (Financial Tech)

  • The presentation stayed true to its core thesis that payments are becoming commoditised, with future value creation shifting to services delivered before, during and after transactions.
  • The discussion consistently followed the original structure around infrastructure modernisation, fraud and risk management, and commerce expansion through payment acceptance capabilities.
  • The emphasis on modular technology, API-first architecture and incremental innovation remained faithful to the original transcript throughout.
  • The descriptions of core banking modernisation, loyalty infrastructure, behavioural fraud monitoring and payment acceptance platforms closely matched the original examples and explanations.
  • The closing discussion on agentic AI, trust, authentication, fraud prevention and network tokens remained aligned with the original transcript without introducing additional interpretation.

How hyper personalisation is redefining the future of financial experiences (Financial Tech)

  • Banks are using data, machine learning and AI across lending, fraud detection, customer behaviour analysis and branch network design, combining transactional, ecosystem, merchant and behavioural data to improve underwriting, crime prevention and customer journeys.
  • Hyper personalisation was described as moving beyond customer segmentation into understanding customer readiness, lifecycle stage and engagement timing, including when not to engage customers.
  • Banks and digital banking platforms highlighted the importance of trust, privacy, consent and governance, with strict guardrails around customer data usage, sensitive systems and high-risk AI applications.
  • Digital-first banking models described using alternative data sources, device behaviour, telco data and customer interaction patterns to assess financial stress, personalise engagement and support lending and risk decisions alongside human review.
  • Agentic AI and workflow automation are being introduced gradually through internal operational use cases, fraud monitoring, risk management and controlled sandbox testing, while institutions emphasised governance, audit controls, security requirements and the high infrastructure and compliance costs of scaling AI adoption.

Keynote Fireside Chat — A Day in the Life of a CISO (Financial Tech)

  • Building a cyber defence roadmap starts with risk assessment using national or international standards, validated by an independent consultant, with maturity gaps addressed incrementally through repeated cycles of self-assessment, controls implementation, and external validation rather than treated as a one-time exercise.
  • Cybersecurity is most effectively positioned not as a cost centre but as a business enabler that preserves an institution's operating licence, with the value demonstrated progressively through stakeholder engagement and delivered results rather than asserted upfront.
  • Risk ratings must be assessed holistically rather than individually, as attackers typically exploit combinations of medium-rated vulnerabilities rather than single critical ones, making aggregated and contextual risk analysis more meaningful than treating each in isolation.
  • Knowing where risks remain open is more important than counting what has been closed, with continuous monitoring needed to ensure previously addressed vulnerabilities do not reopen over time.
  • Regulators and auditors are most valuable when treated as partners rather than adversaries, with proactive engagement and voluntary information sharing described as more effective than waiting for formal audit cycles to surface gaps.

Putting AI to Work in Everyday Banking (Financial Tech)

  • The session focuses on moving financial services from AI experimentation to embedding AI into everyday banking through production use cases, agent-based systems, and enterprise-scale deployment.
  • AI adoption is shaped by global and regional factors, including narrowing differences between Eastern and Western models, uneven regional maturity, rising use of AI across society, and the need for clear rules on AI access to data and responsible usage in financial institutions.
  • The emphasis shifts from AI-driven productivity to revenue generation, with the view that institutions should first use AI to grow business value before focusing on optimisation and efficiency.
  • Examples of implementation include building industry-focused large language models, deploying hundreds of AI agents, and accelerating product delivery cycles, with some solutions moving from development to enterprise use in around two months.
  • Use cases include AI support for wealth advisers, AI-native health applications at scale, agentic payment systems increasing transaction volumes, and “super agents” designed to support both customers and bankers with embedded oversight and decision support.

Delivering financial services inside everyday platforms

  • Financial services are shifting from destination banking to contextual banking, embedding banking activities into platforms and services customers already use rather than requiring direct interaction with banks.
  • Digital banks are embedding lending, deposits and payments into partner ecosystems such as POS providers, payment service providers and platform ecosystems to reach SMEs at the point where they conduct business activities.
  • Banking activities are expected to become more seamless and “invisible”, while trust, brand recognition, fraud controls and customer protection remain critical to customer adoption and retention.
  • Embedded finance adoption differs across regions, with mobile money ecosystems driving financial inclusion and invisible banking models in Africa, while Southeast Asian markets continue to rely strongly on regulated bank trust and partnerships.
  • Agentic AI and agent-to-agent commerce are expected to accelerate embedded finance by enabling automated payments, invoicing, supplier transactions and financial decision-making within connected ecosystems.

AI-driven fraud and the new threat landscape (Financial Tech)

  • AI is accelerating both cyber risk and cyber defence, increasing the scale and sophistication of fraud through personalised attacks, deepfakes, AI-generated fake documents and automated exploitation of vulnerabilities.
  • Boards are moving away from “all green” cyber dashboards toward more balanced risk reporting that surfaces real issues, tracks leading and lagging indicators, and demonstrates remediation efforts from red to amber to green.
  • AI adoption is increasing the importance of cybersecurity foundations, including data governance, access controls and behavioural monitoring, as AI agents can unintentionally expose poorly managed permissions and sensitive data.
  • Financial institutions are expected to increase collaboration with fintechs, AI firms and RegTech providers to address fraud detection, AI-driven compliance, behavioural biometrics, AML monitoring and false-positive reduction at greater scale and speed.
  • Human oversight is expected to remain important in high-risk decisions, while AI-driven automation expands across cybersecurity operations, fraud monitoring and customer interactions, creating new challenges around explainability, accountability, regulation and AI agent management.

AI at Scale Requires Ecosystem Openness, Sovereignty, and Governance Discipline

  • AI chip performance continues to improve rapidly, but value depends on the ecosystem of software developers and applications built around the hardware, not hardware alone.
  • AI ecosystems are being shaped by large technology platforms that support both open-source and proprietary models, while still driving users toward their infrastructure.
  • AI sovereignty is defined as ensuring continuous, controllable access to AI systems, especially for critical sectors like banking, where thousands of AI agents may operate core functions.
  • AI-driven economies are expanding toward agentic systems where AI manages customer interaction, operations, and transactions, requiring banks to validate and authenticate machine customers.
  • Effective AI deployment requires balancing openness with security through strong AI governance, guardrails, and safeguards such as kill switches to prevent autonomous system failures.

Asian banks are better positioned than they think, if they act now

The opening session of The Asian Banker Summit 2026 brought together Malaysia's Deputy Minister of Finance YB Liew Chin Tong, Maybank Group CEO Dato' Sri Khairussaleh Ramli, former U.S. Congressman Patrick McHenry, and Hong Leong Bank Group CEO Kevin Lam.

The world has changed structurally, not cyclically

  • Liew Chin Tong framed the moment as a potential once-in-80-years realignment, driven by five converging forces: a fracturing US-led order, health crises, energy transition, climate risk, and AI — and argued bankers must now understand supply chains, critical minerals, and geopolitics, not just the velocity of money
  • Malaysia's opportunity sits in what he called "three middles": indispensable in semiconductor supply chains, deliberately non-aligned geopolitically, and targeting a middle-class second economic takeoff

AI adoption is real in Malaysia — but governance is lagging

  • Khairussaleh Ramli cited 71% of Malaysian financial institutions having deployed at least one AI application; e-payment volumes doubled between 2022 and 2024
  • His sharpest warning: adversarial AI can already chain vulnerabilities faster than human security teams can respond — banks must fight AI with AI at machine speed

US regulatory policy is now political — and the dollar has been over-weaponised

  • McHenry was blunt: US weaponisation of the dollar and payments infrastructure has damaged global connectivity and US economic interests simultaneously — and there is now genuine bipartisan concern it has gone too far
  • Large US banks' resistance to stablecoin regulation is defensive fear, not sound policy; the competitive window is real but temporary

For a mid-sized bank CEO, AI is already a workforce problem

  • Lam revealed Hong Leong Bank's headcount has quietly fallen by hundreds while its client base grew — roles vacated were simply not replaced, absorbed by AI
  • His framing: an AI strategy properly defined is a people strategy, and the retraining agenda is not keeping pace with deployment

The session's strongest takeaway, voiced by multiple speakers: middle economies — less burdened by superpower politics, more pragmatic in regulation — may be ahead of where they give themselves credit for.

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