Asia Fintech & Payments Regulatory Bulletin – August 2026

Regulatory activity across Asia's fintech and payments landscape remained active this month, with key themes including cyber and quantum resilience, artificial intelligence governance, crypto asset regulation and payments supervision.

This bulletin contains a brief summary of a selection of the regulatory developments across the region. To receive a more detailed breakdown of these developments, please subscribe to our monthly newsletter below.

Key developments by jurisdiction

• Hong Kong SAR:

  • The HKMA, SFC, Insurance Authority and Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority issued a joint circular on the findings of their cross-sectorial cyber mapping exercise, which identified no new systemic risks but flagged certain third-party service providers as warranting increased supervisory attention.

  • The HKMA released a Whitepaper on Quantum Preparedness of Hong Kong's Banking Sector and its first Quantum Preparedness Index, giving the sector an initial score of 2.3 out of 10 and setting a 2030 deadline for full sectoral readiness.

• Mainland China:

  • Four financial regulators jointly issued draft Measures for the Administration of Cybersecurity in the Financial Industry, a cross-sector framework setting baseline compliance obligations across banking, securities, insurance and funds, alongside sector-specific draft measures for banking and insurance.

• Singapore: 

  • MAS, together with leading financial institutions and fintechs, published a white paper titled “Safeguards for Agentic Finance at Runtime” (SAFR), proposing an industry-developed framework enabling AI agents to carry out financial tasks safely, securely and reliably.

  • MAS and ABS established the AI-Driven Cyber and Technology Risk Taskforce (ACT), an industry-wide initiative to strengthen the financial sector's cyber and technology resilience against threats posed by frontier AI models.

  • MAS published an information paper setting out its supervisory expectations for digital payment token service providers on implementing AML/CFT/CPF controls, covering areas such as risk assessment, customer due diligence, the travel rule and ongoing monitoring.

• Japan:

  • A bill to amend the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA) and the Payment Services Act was enacted, transferring the regulation of crypto assets to the FIEA and introducing mandatory disclosure and insider trading rules, with the amendments to come into force within one year.

• Thailand: 

  • The BOT issued a consultation paper on proposed Digital Channel Security principles, open until 24 August 2026, setting out enhanced authentication, anti-phishing and application-hardening measures for banks and payment service providers offering digital banking services.

• Indonesia: 

  • OJK enacted a new implementing regulation for digital asset trading, reforming reporting requirements for digital financial asset trading operators, including removal of the annual business plan and daily reporting requirements, taking effect on 1 September 2026.

• UAE: 

  • The DFSA proposed targeted refinements to the definitions of “Fiat Crypto Tokens”, “Privacy Tokens”, “Privacy Devices” and “Investment Token” under its Investment Token and Crypto Token regimes, with the consultation closing on 24 August 2026.