Southeast Asia

Banks and payment giants at the Singapore FinTech Festival warned about deepfakes, cyberattacks, and AI-driven fraud even as they push aggressively into agentic AI and design their firms around AI-native operating models. With risks rising, leaders said 2026 will force a balance between ambition and safeguards.

The Asia-based travel experience platform revealed adjusted EBITDA profits for the first time in its public filing to the SEC.

Emerging markets are fuelling the rise of stablecoins. New regulations mean that more institutions are tapping greater distribution that could reshape global finance, including in Apac.

The funds will be mobilised to support initiatives such as the Asean Power Grid, in collaboration with four Malaysian banks.

Singapore-based Ivee Tan takes on the export credit agency and multilateral financing solutions role; she most recently worked at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation as renewables and sustainable energy director.

As tokenised assets surge, institutions, innovators and regulators, are converging to rewrite how global capital moves, including in Apac, according to a high-level panel discussion at Token2049 in Singapore.

The proposal values the group at $4.2bn and will involve delisting from the Singapore Exchange. Alibaba and Ant Group have agreed to buy 13 floors of Mandarin Oriental's new Hong Kong office building One Causeway Bay; the group is expanding in Seoul.

Rich Chun is appointed managing director, head of Asia at Tradeweb, effective immediately; he joins from HPS Investment Partners.

The Equity Market Development Plan has helped boost IPOs and valuations this year, including SGX's appeal for secondary listings, such as US data firm AvePoint. FA spoke with experts at Cooley and Grasshopper Asia.