Asia Fintech & Payments Regulatory Bulletin – September 2026

Regulatory activity across Asia’s fintech and payments landscape continued at pace this month, with key themes including AI governance, data protection, crypto asset regulation, agentic payments and fintech investment.

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 jointly announced the first cohort of the cross-sectoral Generative AI Sandbox++, with 36 selected use cases focusing on agentic AI applications across customer onboarding, payments, insurance claims and dynamic AI oversight.

  • Anchorpoint Financial commenced the first-phase roll-out of HKDAP, the first regulated Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin, initially focused on institutional distributors and professional investors through authorised distributors including Standard Chartered.

• Mainland China:

  • China’s National Cybersecurity Standardisation Technical Committee (TC260) published a practice guide on the safe use of AI services by individual users, cautioning that AI outputs on financial planning should be independently verified and directing users to select only registered generative AI services.

  • The Payment & Clearing Association of China (PCAC) issued a Self-Regulatory Convention on Agentic Payment Applications, requiring members to explore a “Know Your Agent” mechanism alongside existing KYC practices and to file with PCAC before launching agent-initiated autonomous payment applications.

• Singapore:

  • MAS committed S$220 million over three years under the renewed Financial Sector Technology and Innovation Scheme (FSTI 4.0) to strengthen Singapore’s fintech ecosystem.

• Japan:

  • The JFSA announced a large-scale organisational reform, establishing five new divisions including a dedicated Crypto Asset and Stablecoin Division consolidating supervision, innovation promotion and payment planning functions.

  • Part of the 2026 amendments to the FIEA and the Payment Services Act has come into force, increasing criminal penalties for carrying on regulated business without registration and adding criminal investigation powers of the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission.

• Thailand:

  • The SEC issued a consultation paper on 11 draft notifications to permit the establishment of crypto exchange-traded funds (Crypto ETFs) in Thailand, initially limited to Bitcoin and Ethereum, with the regulations expected to take effect during 2026.

• UAE:

  • The DFSA issued a consultation paper proposing updates to the Collective Investment Funds framework in the DIFC, including an early-stage dialogue on the tokenisation of fund units and fund assets.