Over the past few years, Pakistan’s digital banking sector has been developing slowly but surely. Back in 2023, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) approved five digital retail banks, issuing no-objection certificates to HugoBank, KT Bank Pakistan (now Buraq Bank), Mashreq Bank Pakistan, Raqqami Islamic Digital Bank, and Telenor Microfinance Bank. Since then, based on the list of SBP-regulated entities, three digital banks in Pakistan are now in operation: Easypaisa Bank Limited, Mashreq Bank Pakistan Limited, and Raqami Islamic Digital Bank Limited. For consumers searching for the best digital bank in Pakistan, their pick depends on whether they prioritise breadth of services, Islamic banking features, or business banking capabilities. Last updated: 16 April 2026 Easypaisa Bank Limited Easypaisa was founded in 2009 and backed by Telenor Group and Ant Group (the company behind China’s Alipay). It has since developed into a comprehensive digital banking platform serving 55+ million users, according to its website, including 31% women, a meaningful push toward financial inclusion. The bank delivers its services and solutions via a mobile app that handles everything from term deposits to micro-enterprise loans. Users can transfer money through various methods, including NayaPay, Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) transfers, Raast ID, and QR payments. For those who require debit cards, Easypaisa offers its personal banking customers virtual or physical cards that enable withdrawals at 16,000+ ATM machines. The cards can also be used to shop at 90,000+ stores, and are powered by either Visa, UnionPay, or PayPak. The digital bank also offers zakat declaration, term deposits, savings pockets, BNPL, easycash loans, and an insurance marketplace for its retail customers. There’s also a daily rewards feature that offers users incentives for regularly engaging with their account. Next, on its business end, Easypaisa offers a dedicated suite of tools aimed at merchants, traders, and farmers, too. Businesses can open an account with digital onboarding and manage finances through an e-banking portal with real-time transaction visibility. The platform handles salary disbursements, bulk vendor payments, cash collection management, and more. On the lending side, the microfinance loan portfolio covers small businesses, growing operations, dairy loans for agricultural businesses, and even a dedicated Karobari Qarza product tailored for women-led businesses. Mashreq Bank Pakistan Limited Mashreq Bank in Pakistan advertises itself as an “Islamic-first, digital-first” bank backed by the UAE-based Mashreq Group. The bank shares that its mission is to drive Pakistan’s next chapter of growth through smarter, more accessible financial services. Mashreq NEO delivers its services through a mobile app. The bank says customers can open an account in as little as five minutes by simply verifying their Computerised National Identity Card, with no minimum balance required to open or maintain an account. Mashreq NEO offers Islamic and conventional account options, ranging from its flagship Islamic Current Profit Account and Islamic Savings Account to the conventional NEO Savings Account and finally, the Mashreq Pakistan Account, described as a way to live in the UAE and bank in Pakistan digitally. The bank also issues a PayPak Debit Card that comes with built-in life insurance or Takaful coverage. The card also unlocks offers at 30,000+ merchants across 158 cities in Pakistan. Fraud protection is included, covering each card for up to PKR 30,000 against instances like fraudulent transactions while the card is in the customer’s possession, unauthorised charges from lost or stolen cards, and digital fraud. Mashreq NEO BIZ, meanwhile, delivers real-time account management, including payment and collection solutions, as well as debit cards. Customer support is available around the clock through the Mashreq Virtual Assistant. Raqami Islamic Digital Bank Raqami Islamic Digital Bank (RIDB) is backed by Pakistan Kuwait Investment Company (Private) Limited and Enertech Holding Company KSC, a subsidiary of Kuwait Investment Authority.  Their core retail offerings cover a Current Account for everyday transactions (funds held as Qard), a Savings Account where profits are earned through a Mudaraba partnership, and a Term Deposit product for fixed-tenure investments ranging from 7 days up to one year. RIDB also offer Saving Pots, a goal-based in-app savings feature with options like round-up savings and a 52-week challenge. On top of that, customers get a PayPak debit card with access to 19,000+ ATMs, acceptance at 140,000+ retail outlets, and built-in Takaful (Islamic insurance) coverage. As for business offerings, RIDB recently secured its commercial banking licence in February 2026.  HugoBank (Coming Soon) HugoBank aims to provide accessible financial services to all Pakistanis regardless of socio-economic background. The bank is a consortium which includes Singapore-headquartered Atlas Consolidated. HugoBank’s proposed offering includes transparency on fees in its banking solutions, bill payments, budgeting tools, automated savings and wealth-building features. The platform is currently in its beta phase, with the app available to a limited set of early users. Prospective customers can join a waitlist via the HugoBank website to secure early access and provide feedback that will shape the app. Buraq Bank (Coming Soon) While it’s still in its pre-launch phase, Buraq Bank Pakistan Limited, formerly KT Bank, is another emerging Islamic digital bank in Pakistan. The bank intends to offer a number of banking solutions, ranging from accounts to instant transfers and other forms of digital banking experiences. A community waitlist is open on its website, inviting prospective customers to register ahead of launch. As of April 2026, Buraq Bank remains in its pre-launch stage, with no products yet publicly available. Which Is the Best Digital Bank in Pakistan? For consumers searching for the best digital bank in Pakistan, the answer depends on whether they prioritise breadth of services, Islamic banking features, or business banking capabilities. There is no single best digital bank in Pakistan for every user, but Easypaisa currently stands out for the breadth of its offering, while Mashreq and Raqami each serve more specific needs. Easypaisa’s product suite, which spans retail savings, BNPL, insurance, and dedicated microfinance lending for businesses and farmers, functions almost like a full-service mobile financial platform. Mashreq Bank Pakistan and Raqami Islamic Digital Bank, by contrast, are still in the early stages of building their customer bases, but each brings a distinct angle. Mashreq pitches itself as “Islamic-first, digital-first” while also offering conventional accounts, making it the only one of the three to explicitly cater to both segments. Raqami, meanwhile, has all products structured around Islamic finance principles, and its recent commercial banking licence (secured in February 2026) signals that it is beginning to move beyond retail into business banking. On lending, Easypaisa leads by a significant margin. Its microfinance loan portfolio is the most developed of the three, while Mashreq and Raqami remain largely focused on deposits and payments at this stage. What Comes Next for Pakistan’s Digital Banking Scene? Pakistan’s digital banking sector is still growing, even as players like HugoBank and Buraq Bank have yet to move into full operations. The broader macroeconomic context is working in Pakistan’s favour. A recent report from Arab News indicated that the country’s digital banking users have surpassed 127 million, a given as the government steers towards a cashless society. Raast, Pakistan’s instant digital payment system, has processed roughly $72 million since its launch back in 2021. Although it is still a cash-dominated country, the State Bank of Pakistan aims to ensure that transactions become easily traceable to curb corruption and tax evasion challenges. One initiative for this shift is a cashless model across the country’s airports, where only digital service providers can deliver services to consumers there. Another is a new regulatory framework that allows teenagers to independently own and operate bank accounts and digital wallets, in a bid to promote financial inclusivity. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) What are the digital banking options in Pakistan? There are three digital banks available in Pakistan: Easypaisa Bank Limited, Mashreq Bank Pakistan Limited, and Raqami Islamic Digital Bank Limited. Are these digital banks safe? Are they regulated? Yes, if you’re wary and only use digital banks that are regulated by the State Bank of Pakistan and appear on the SBP’s official list of regulated financial institutions. What is the difference between a digital bank and a conventional bank with a mobile app? A digital bank tends to operate exclusively through digital channels with no physical branches. A conventional bank usually maintains a branch network alongside its digital services. The two operate under different regulatory frameworks. What is an Islamic digital bank? An Islamic digital bank delivers modern, fully online banking services built on Shariah-compliant principles. Featured image edited by Fintech News Singapore based on images by razahameed and altervelt on Freepik The post Best Digital Banks in Pakistan: What Does Each Licensed Bank Offer in 2026? appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Google Pay has introduced Pocket Money, a feature built on the National Payments Corporation of India’s UPI Circle framework. It allows users to enable UPI payments for family members, friends or employees who do not have their own bank accounts. An existing Google Pay user acts as the primary user, while the added person becomes a secondary user. Payments made by the secondary user are routed through the primary user’s linked bank account. Primary users can add up to five secondary users, provided they are saved in their phone contacts, have Google Pay registered with their mobile number, and have either a UPI ID or a UPI Circle QR code. Spending can be managed in two ways. Under full delegation, the primary user can set a monthly limit of up to 15,000 rupees, allowing the secondary user to make payments within that cap without further approval. Under partial delegation, each transaction must be approved individually by the primary user. Google Pay also applies initial restrictions for newly added secondary users. Under full delegation, the first payment can only be made after 30 minutes. Under partial delegation, payment requests are capped at 5,000 rupees during the first 24 hours. To use the feature, the primary user must have an active bank account linked to Google Pay. The setup process also requires details such as the secondary user’s relationship to the primary user and their government identification number. The verification process helps keep Google Pay Pocket Money in line with the Reserve Bank of India’s Know Your Customer requirements.     Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by ramstudio via Freepik The post Google Pay Introduces Pocket Money for UPI Payments Without a Bank Account appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Backbase and Ninth Wave have formed a strategic partnership to provide banks with direct connectivity between corporate ERP systems and banking data. The integration allows financial institutions using the Backbase platform to offer business clients a secure link to accounting software, aimed at improving cash flow visibility and payment execution. The collaboration between Backbase and Ninth Wave uses an API-first connectivity layer to manage consent, activity logs, and governance within a single platform. This bridge facilitates real-time data transfer with integrated compliance controls, removing the need for manual workarounds or data scraping. The partnership focuses on embedding banking services directly into the tools businesses use for daily financial management. By using the Ninth Wave connectivity layer, banks can offer a direct integration path into how their corporate clients actually operate. Mayank Somaiya “Commercial clients prefer not to log into a portal and re-enter data that their ERP system already has. By partnering with Ninth Wave, we give banks a direct integration path into how their corporate clients actually operate. That’s what keeps relationships sticky and opens the door to real value-added services,” said Mayank Somaiya, Global VP for Marketplace at Backbase. Joe Fiorillo “Backbase offers a robust, modern foundation for commercial banking, and Ninth Wave simplifies connectivity by managing API connections, ensuring strong security, and providing a management hub to oversee their Open Finance operations. Together, we are delivering the modern banking services that business clients require,” said Joe Fiorillo, Ninth Wave’s VP of Strategic Partnerships. The joint solution is available now. Moving forward, the Backbase Ninth Wave partnership intends to expand ERP features to support multi-country corporate payments and real-time cash management dashboards for global enterprises.     Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by brilian via Freepik The post Backbase, Ninth Wave Bring Open Finance Connectivity to Commercial Banking appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Fireblocks has launched Earn, a native onchain lending feature built into its enterprise platform. The tool allows institutions to supply stablecoin balances to lending protocols, targeting capital that often sits idle between deployment cycles, settlement windows, or operational holds. The launch follows a year where Fireblocks processed US$6 trillion in stablecoin transfer volume, a 300% year-on-year increase across its 2,400 institutional clients. By embedding lending capabilities, the company provides a secure path for customers to put capital to work using the same approval workflows and policy controls used for their digital asset operations. Through the integration, institutions can access Morpho, a lending network powering curated strategies from names such as Sentora. They can also access Aave, a protocol representing roughly 60% of market activity and the majority of onchain stablecoin borrowing. Both protocols are accessible within the Fireblocks environment, maintaining institutional governance over decentralised finance (DeFi) operations. Michael Shaulov Michael Shaulov, CEO and Co-Founder of Fireblocks, said, “One of the biggest unlocks of onchain finance is the ability to put money to work every second, never letting it sit idle. For the first time, institutions can put those balances to work through onchain lending strategies curated by established institutional names, inside the same platform, under the same controls they already run. Every institution on Fireblocks now has access to a revenue line they didn’t have yesterday.” The launch includes a curated vault from Sentora powered by Morpho, an infrastructure layer designed for managed, accountable access to professional capital. Morpho uses a curator model to provide the oversight required for institutional participation. Earn is available across all Fireblocks solutions. For corporate treasuries, this provides access to lending strategies without new infrastructure or operational changes. For firms building financial products, the feature allows these capabilities to be offered directly within applications. Fireblocks Earn is currently in early access for customers.     Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by user39735559 via Freepik The post Fireblocks Launches Earn for Institutional Onchain Lending appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Money20/20 Asia is returning to the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok from April 21 to 23, 2026, bringing together the region’s most powerful voices across banking, payments, digital assets, and financial innovation to redefine Asia’s fintech future. This year’s theme, “Front Infrastructure to Impact – Where Technology Meets Humanity”, will explore how the next wave of financial innovation delivers tangible outcomes across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. The conference will feature 250 speakers representing over 40 global and regional banks, alongside leading payment providers including Visa, Nium, and Thunes. Together, these experts will address the industry’s most critical topics such as digital public infrastructure, embedded finance, artificial intelligence (AI)‑powered services, and inclusive financial design. A comprehensive program spread across five stages This year, Money20/20 Asia promises more than 50 hours of strategies and insights distributed across five distinct stages. The Radiant Stage will unit Asia’s most influential industry voices; the Inner Forum Stage will offer deep‑dive sessions and workshops; and the MoneyPot Stage will feature live podcasting and networking experiences, creating a comprehensive ecosystem for learning, debate, and collaboration. Complementing these stages, the Startup and Investor Park will connect 20 standout APAC startups with global investors, enterprise partners, and decision‑makers. These startups will get the chance to compete for the Golden Ticket to the 2026 Startupbootcamp Sustainability Singapore Accelerator, which will offer the winners SGD 70,000 (US$55,000) in non-dilutive prize money, access to the Investment Readiness Program, and expert coaching. Making its debut in 2026, the Intersection Stage will explore the real-world outcomes of traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) convergence across APAC, addressing how banks, fintech startups, and emerging technologies are reshaping the global financial ecosystem. This stage will bring together leaders from major financial institutions and well-known fintech companies to discuss how innovation, regulation, and new financial infrastructure are transforming areas such as digital assets, trust and cybersecurity, and cross-border payments. Money20/20 Asia 2026 floor map, Source: Money20/20, Apr 2026 Top sessions to attend on Day 1 Delving deeper into this year’s agenda, several sessions stand out for their timely topics and prominent lineups. These sessions will address some of fintech’s most pressing issues and opportunities, including AI advance, cross-border payments, digital assets, and fintech regulation, featuring industry pioneers who will share their experiences, insights, and predictions for the sector’s future. On April 21, the Scaling Finance Across Asia, Global Platforms and Local Needs session will be held from 10:30 to 11:10 on the Radiant Stage, exploring how financial engagement across Asia is being reshaped by technology that reflects deeply local needs. The discussion, which will feature Nadia Omer of MOVE, Raymond Ng of Revolut, Rachel Whelan of Deutsche Bank, and Vira Platonova of Visa will speak, with Danny Levy of Money20/20 moderating, will examine how regional platforms and partnerships can support resilient financial ecosystems by balancing scale with hyperlocal relevance as institutions navigate diverse markets, infrastructure gaps, and evolving customer expectations. The Breaking Barriers with Scalable Payment Solutions across Asia session, taking place from 11:25 to 11:55 on the MoneyPot Stage, will explore the challenges of scaling payment infrastructure across Asia, such as fragmented regulations and legacy systems, by examining how institutions are redesigning architecture with modular, cloud-native platforms. Led by experts from FIS, Bank of America, and McKinsey, the discussion will focus on balancing regional scale with local adaptability to ensure seamless and trusted cross-border payments. The From Clicks to Code, Governing the Age of Autonomous Commerce panel, scheduled from 11:40 to 12:20 on the Radiant Stage, will investigate the shift from human-led to machine-driven commerce as AI agents begin to transact on behalf of users. Speakers from Worldpay, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and Visa will explore how liability, authentication, and trust frameworks must evolve to enable safe, scalable autonomous commerce through interoperable standards. The Global Money Moves: Connecting Commerce with Cross Currency Payments session, taking place from 11:50 to 12:30 on the Inner Forum Stage, will focus on the critical nature of cross-currency payments to global commerce despite ongoing friction regarding liquidity and regulatory complexity. Leaders from Razorpay, JP Morgan, and Thunes will examine how new infrastructure and digital rails are reshaping money movement to deliver faster, more transparent solutions for global merchants. The Building Intelligent Infrastructure: From Digital Foundations to Human Connections session, scheduled from 13:30 to 14:00 on the MoneyPot Stage, will discuss how intelligent infrastructure is evolving from back-end plumbing to a strategic growth engine as finance becomes increasingly embedded in business operations. Speakers from Ascent Venture Group, Finmo, Coda Payments, BigPay, and Wise will highlight how modular, API-first, and AI-powered platforms are enabling international payments to flow seamlessly into ERP, e-commerce, and supply chain systems, closing long-standing connectivity gaps and bringing enterprise-grade treasury capabilities within reach of businesses of every size. The Winning the Borderless Consumer Through Smarter Payments panel will take place from 13:55 to 14:35 on the Radiant Stage, exploring how travel platforms and fintech innovators are simplifying cross-border consumer payments for Asia’s globally minded consumers. Experts from TenPay Global, YouTrip, PayPal, and TripLink will discuss how local rails, smart foreign exchange (FX) routing, and embedded wallet experiences define the next generation of borderless commerce. The Redefining the Banking Experience for Underserved Segments session, scheduled from 14:45 to 15:15 on the Inner Forum Stage, will examine how digital banks across APAC are using AI, alternative data, and automation to expand access, improve risk assessment, and simplify everyday money management. Panelists from GXS Bank, ANEXT Bank, and Green Link Digital Bank will explore how next-generation banking models are closing access gaps while building sustainable, trust-driven relationships with emerging customer segments. The Banking on Digital Transformation 101 panel, taking place from 15:30 to 16:10 on the Intersection Stage, will explore how banks across Asia are modernizing core systems, operating models, and customer experiences to remain competitive in a digital-first economy. Bringing together perspectives from Mox Bank, Alliance Bank Malaysia, and Yusys Technologies, it will examine the practical realities of transformation, while also highlighting the growing impact of digital assets in reshaping financial services and driving innovation. The Driving Pragmatic Innovation: Pioneering Seamless Payments with Tokenisation session, taking place from 16:15 to 16:45 on the Intersection Stage, will address the corporate need for 24/7 payment solutions beyond real-time rails. Speakers from HSBC, Swift SC, and MAS will discuss how traditional finance players are partnering to leverage distributed ledger technology (DLT) and tokenization to transform corporate treasury flows. Key sessions on Day 2 and Day 3 On April 22, the Payment Workshop: Readiness Barometer of Tokenized Money – Moderated Debate will be held from 10:05 to 10:25 on the Inner Forum Stage, assessing how ready the ecosystem is for tokenized money across regulation and trust, infrastructure and interoperability, real-world demand, and ecosystem alignment. Participants from Thunes, Emerging Payments Association Asia, Fireblocks, and Coinbase will explore whether governance frameworks are clear and use cases are commercially viable to define the path from experimentation to real-world adoption. The Ambition to Action through Operationalizing AI and Data Intelligence in Financial Services session, held from 15:20 to 15:50 on the Radiant Stage, will examine the practical application of AI and data intelligence, emphasizing the transition from theory to measurable business value. Drawing on the expertise of Yusys Technologies, and Huawei, the session will outline the technical infrastructure and security protocols necessary for large-scale implementation of advanced analytics and generative AI (genAI). The How Digital Asset Ecosystems Will Redefine Money session, taking place from 15:35 to 16:15 on the Intersection Stage, will dive into cutting-edge innovations like blockchain and DeFi are driving the future of money. Speakers from Standard Chartered, Caladan, KASIKORNBANK, and UOB will explore how these technologies are creating new opportunities, challenging the status quo, and unlocking financial freedom for billions. On April 23, the Money’s Next Evolution, Stablecoins, CBDCs and the New Payment Stack panel will be held from 10:25 to 11:05 on the Intersection Stage, examining how institutional adoption, policy frameworks, and cross-border coordination are redefining settlement at scale. Experts from Ripple, Capitalixe, Paxos Labs, and Yellow Card will explore where stablecoins fit alongside central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), how governance models are evolving, and what this shift means for global payments, liquidity, and digital commerce. The Behavioural Data and the Last Mile of Credit Access session, scheduled from 11:25 to 12:05 on the MoneyPot Stage, will examine how behavioral and psychometric data are used to assess risk and expand credit access where formal credit histories are limited. Panelists from the National Credit Bureau Thailand, Ringkas, Begini, and the Bank of Punjab will look at the practical considerations, safeguards, and trade-offs involved in deploying alternative data models to support more inclusive lending at scale. The Marketing in Fintech: What Works, What Doesn’t, and What’s Next session, taking place from 13:50 to 14:20 on the Inner Forum Stage, will address the increasing complexity and cost of customer acquisition in fintech. Experts from BigPay, People’s Inc. 360 | Seraphina AI, and ANEXT will share insights on what is currently driving results, from data strategies to new distribution approaches, and how trust is built, attention is captured, and growth is sustained in an increasingly competitive landscape. Money20/20 Asia 2026 is expected to bring together 4,000 senior decision-makers from the region and beyond. Register today via this link to secure an all-access pass starting from US$299. Fintech News Network is a media partner.   Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by Money20/20 The post Must-Attend Sessions at Money20/20 Asia in Bangkok appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is evaluating a senior debt investment of up to US$25 million in a Singapore-based private credit vehicle managed by Helicap. According to DealStreetAsia, the capital would support a senior tranche of up to US$50 million issued by the Helicap Income Opportunities Fund. The vehicle, a sub-fund of the Alternative Investments VCC, is overseen by Helicap Investments Pte. Ltd. It provides senior secured private credit loans to non-bank financial institutions and fintech firms throughout Asia. These intermediaries subsequently facilitate financing for MSMEs and other underserved borrowers. The IFC intends to complement its financial commitment with advisory services to help Helicap refine its internal risk management and formalise its responsible lending practices. The development finance institution noted that its participation would provide longer-tenor funding that is often difficult for fintech-focused debt vehicles in emerging markets to secure. Helicap’s Funding and Credit Activity Helicap was established in 2018 by David Z Wang, Quentin Vanoekel, and Jeremy Tan as a specialist in credit syndication and investment management. The platform is backed by several institutional investors, including 33 Ventures, East Ventures, Saison Capital, and Voveo Capital. Its most recent financing round was a 2024 Series B led by the Kenanga Group through a fund managed by Kenanga Investors. This followed a US$5 million strategic raise in 2022 led by Tikehau Capital and PhillipCapital, alongside a US$10 million Series A in 2020. Helicap remains an active deployer of debt capital in the region. In September 2024, the firm announced a US$50 million credit facility for XenCapital, the lending arm of the Indonesian payments unicorn Xendit.     Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by Helicap  The post IFC Weighs US$25 Million Investment in Helicap Private Credit Fund appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Stablecoin transaction volumes surged 72% in 2025, reaching a record US$33 trillion and signalling growing institutional adoption for real-time settlement. Stablecoin payment activity is also heavily concentrated in Asia. Payments originating from the region account for around US$245 billion, or 60% of global stablecoin payment volume, driven largely by Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. As adoption accelerates, institutions are increasingly focused on operational resilience, regulatory compliance, and integrating stablecoins into treasury and payment systems. The question is no longer whether stablecoins work, but how to scale them safely across global cross-border payment networks. In this webinar, we will explore: How stablecoins are emerging as a 24/7 digital settlement infrastructure for global payments The evolving utility of stablecoins as they move beyond trading liquidity toward real-world payment flows How leading payment providers are implementing stablecoin solutions at scale What it takes to build secure, scalable and compliant infrastructure for always-on settlement Panelists: Dan Sleep, Head of Business Solutions – APAC, Fireblocks Hassan Ahmed, Country Director Singapore, Coinbase Zack Yang, Co-founder, FOMO Pay Naveen Gupta, Head of Business Development – Payments, APJ Leader, Amazon Web Services (AWS) Moderator: Vincent Fong, Chief Editor, Fintech News Network The post Why Stablecoins May Become The Backbone of 24/7 Global Trade appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

OCBC has launched a generative AI training programme for 900 wealth advisors in Singapore, as the bank looks to standardise coaching and improve advisory skills at scale. The six-month programme covers investment advisory, client management, product knowledge, and wealth planning. Previously, coaching was conducted in person and depended on the availability of supervisors. Advisors could wait up to three weeks for a session, while supervisors often coached as many as 10 staff alongside other responsibilities. This reliance on manual scheduling often led to uneven feedback and inconsistent evaluation standards. The introduction of OCBC generative AI wealth advisors coaching uses large language models and anonymised internal customer insights to generate training scenarios. These include portfolio planning, risk profiling, product discussions, and strategy adjustments. The tool responds in real time to simulate client conversations and produces a report after each session highlighting competency gaps and areas for improvement. This allows supervisors to focus in-person coaching on specific weaknesses while giving advisors more flexibility to practise independently. The bank reported that advisors who completed the training doubled their weekly client appointments within the first three months compared with peers who had not yet undergone the programme. Participants also recorded a 50% increase in revenue from the previous three months. OCBC plans to extend the programme to Malaysia and Hong Kong with content tailored to the specific regulatory and market needs of each region. Sunny Quek Sunny Quek, OCBC’s Head of Global Consumer Financial Service, said, “We now have a powerful programme for our wealth advisors to help them quickly grasp the skills relevant to build confidence and strong knowledge on products and financial industry regulations. The right customers must be sold the right products at the right time. Driving the tech shift in our corporate strategy, a Gen AI-powered programme like this reinforces our commitment to utilising AI, digital and data capabilities to deliver customer-centric experiences.”   The post OCBC Says Generative AI Training Helped Lift Wealth Advisor Revenue by 50% appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Visa has officially launched its validator node on the Tempo network, marking a key milestone in the company’s push into blockchain infrastructure and stablecoin payments. The move underscores a commitment to running critical blockchain operations in-house to strengthen the foundations of onchain payment innovation. Tempo is a purpose-built Layer 1 blockchain designed for agentic commerce and real-time machine-to-machine payments. Visa, alongside Stripe and Zodia Custody, will serve as the first external validators to join the network as it expands its ecosystem of financial and commerce partners. The validator node was configured and managed internally by Visa following six months of collaboration with the Tempo engineering team. By operating as an anchor validator, Visa will directly participate in confirming and ordering transactions into blocks, helping to ensure the network operates with the reliability and performance required for enterprise-scale payments. Cuy Sheffield Cuy Sheffield, Head of Crypto at Visa, said, “We’ve spent years building our expertise in blockchain, and now we’re expanding that work by running critical blockchain infrastructure ourselves. By operating a validator on Tempo, we’re extending Visa’s commitment to reliability, security, and trust into blockchain networks – supporting the development of stablecoin payment systems that meet the high operating standards our clients and partners expect.” Nischay Upadhyayula “Visa processes billions of transactions across nearly every country in the world. That kind of operational rigor is exactly what we look for in validators on Tempo, built for payments at enterprise scale. They’ve been a design partner since day one, and joining as a validator is a natural extension of that work.” said Nischay Upadhyayula, GTM, Tempo. Visa also serves as a Super Validator on the Canton Network, helping financial institutions explore privacy-preserving onchain payment flows.     Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by stevemax11 via Freepik The post Visa Launches Validator Node on Tempo Network for Stablecoin Payments appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

DBS has appointed Kelvin Wong as its new Chief Sustainability Officer, effective 11 May 2026. Wong succeeds Helge Muenkel, who is leaving the bank to relocate overseas after leading the bank’s sustainability agenda since 2022. Wong currently serves as Managing Director and Head of Energy, Renewables and Infrastructure within the Institutional Banking Group at DBS. Since joining the bank in 2016, he has played a central role in advising on and arranging sustainable finance, carbon credits, and renewable energy transactions across the Asia Pacific region. Prior to his tenure at DBS, Wong held senior leadership positions at Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Standard Chartered Bank, specialising in project, acquisition, and leveraged finance. Tan Su Shan Tan Su Shan, CEO of DBS, said: “With over 20 years of experience in energy, policy regulation and financing, Kelvin is well placed to advance DBS’ sustainability agenda with our clients and communities. We also extend our deep thanks to Helge for his invaluable contributions to DBS’ sustainability journey and wish him every success ahead.”     Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on images by mangpor2004 via Freepik and DBS via LinkedIn   The post DBS Appoints Kelvin Wong as New Chief Sustainability Officer appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Singlife and Singapore Management University (SMU) are partnering to research retirement readiness, aiming to address the financial challenges of Singapore’s rapidly ageing population. The two organisations signed a MoU during the launch of the SMU Longevity Societies and Economies Institute (LSEI). This collaboration will combine Singlife’s industry data with the academic frameworks of the LSEI to identify specific gaps in retirement adequacy. According to the Singlife Financial Freedom Index 2024, 71% of Singaporean consumers lack confidence in their ability to retire at will. While most respondents aim to retire by 65, they expect to need a median of S$2,856 per month, significantly higher than the median monthly savings of S$1,682 reported in the study. Debra Soon “Through our partnership with SMU, we aim to combine customer insights with academic rigour to better understand evolving retirement needs and translate these into practical solutions. Together, we hope to support Singaporeans in planning for longevity with greater confidence, security and purpose,” said Debra Soon, Group Head of Brand, Communications, Marketing and Experience, Singlife. The partnership will focus on understanding the savings required to withstand healthcare inflation and evolving financial needs. These findings will be published in a joint white paper scheduled for release in the second half of 2027. Beyond research, the collaboration includes a talent development component. Singlife and the SMU School of Economics will explore scholarships, internships, and training programmes for students in actuarial science. Dr. Cheong Wei Yang “The insights from LSEI must shape the perspectives of our next generation of actuarial talent. Singlife’s support in scholarships, internships and training opportunities will ensure that we build these new capabilities in Singapore. Together, our efforts will deliver impact by translating insights into practical solutions that can enhance financial security and confidence in retirement – in Singapore and across Asia,” said Dr. Cheong Wei Yang, Interim Co-Director, SMU LSEI; Vice Provost (Strategic Research Partnerships), SMU.     Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by Pixelid via Freepik The post Singlife Partners SMU on Retirement Research, Actuarial Talent Push appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Choco Up has launched a US$30 million private credit facility in partnership with tech-driven credit specialist CHUAN to provide faster and more reliable financing for SMEs across Asia Pacific. The Choco Up credit facility aims to automate the delivery of working capital to match the operational cycles of small businesses. The first drawdown from the facility has already been completed, marking the start of its deployment across the region. The partnership combines CHUAN’s access to institutional capital with Choco Up’s data-driven credit assessment. This enables funding approvals in as little as a few hours, compared with traditional lending timelines that can reach six months. By combining Choco Up’s AI-driven credit assessment and real-time data with CHUAN’s investor-facing infrastructure, the partnership is intended to give capital providers near real-time visibility into the performance of the underlying assets. This is aimed at improving transparency and the investability of this asset class. Percy Hung “SMEs today don’t just need access to capital. They need financing that keeps pace with how their businesses operate. We’re excited to partner with CHUAN to provide disciplined, transparent, and carefully managed capital, helping businesses continue to grow and innovate even when traditional lending options are limited.” said Percy Hung, CEO and Founder of Choco Up. Choco Up has enabled over US$1 billion in gross merchandise value to date through its flexible financing model. CHUAN brings capital markets expertise, a global investor network, and infrastructure to aggregate and distribute diversified credit opportunities within the digital economy.   Featured image: (From left) Leaders from CHUAN (Lin Tun, Founding Partner and Chief Investment Officer, and  Kevin Yung, Partner and Chief Financial Officer), and Choco Up (Heng Tam, Vice President,  and Percy Hung, CEO and Founder)  The post Choco Up Launches US$30 Million Credit Facility for APAC SMEs appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Stablecoins have spent the past few years building momentum on the edges of finance, powering crypto trading, remittances, and a growing range of Web3 use cases. The industry is now entering a new phase that looks less like a parallel system and more like an extension of existing infrastructure. A Thredd report, in collaboration with Reap and Fireblocks, points to this shift already taking shape. Payment providers are integrating stablecoins into card infrastructure, allowing users to spend them like fiat within familiar payment experiences. Rather than replacing existing systems, the market is steadily merging new settlement rails with established payment networks. Spending Stablecoins Without the Extra Steps In practice, users still rely on a series of conversions before they can spend stablecoins. Funds typically move from wallets to exchanges, convert into fiat, transfer into bank accounts, and only then load onto cards for payments. Each step adds delay and cost. Payment providers are now removing much of this friction by enabling direct authorisation against stablecoin balances at the point of sale. The user experience remains unchanged, but the funding source shifts from bank accounts to digital wallets. Card networks still process transactions through existing infrastructure, while blockchain rails handle settlement in the background. This eliminates the need for pre-funding and off-ramping, making stablecoins easier to use for everyday payments rather than passive holdings. Traditional Rails Still Do the Heavy Lifting Despite growing adoption, stablecoins continue to rely heavily on existing payment infrastructure. The four-party model (connecting customer, merchant, acquirer, and issuer) remains central to the global payment scale. Card networks still provide capabilities that blockchain systems have not yet matched, particularly in acceptance, trust, and regulatory coverage. Decades of expansion have created near-universal merchant acceptance, while established systems continue to embed fraud controls, dispute resolution, and compliance frameworks such as KYC and AML. These safeguards remain difficult to replicate at scale in decentralised environments. Access to fiat currency also remains essential. Card-linked infrastructure continues to provide a reliable bridge between digital assets and local currencies within a familiar framework. Together, these factors explain why stablecoins are being integrated into existing rails rather than displacing them. The Layer Connecting Wallets to Card Networks Between wallets and card networks sits a less visible but essential layer of infrastructure. Issuer processors act as the connective tissue between digital wallets, blockchain systems, and card schemes. They monitor balances in real time, enforce transaction rules, and ensure payments move smoothly through authorisation and settlement. In stablecoin-based systems, this requires direct API connections to wallet providers alongside backend integration with on-chain settlement networks. Firms such as Thredd, Reap, and Fireblocks are already enabling this model, helping fintechs link stablecoin balances to card-based spending. The result is a blended architecture where blockchain handles value transfer while traditional infrastructure maintains access, compliance, and usability. US$36 Billion in B2B Stablecoin Payments Shows Corporate Demand Is Surging Although much of the early attention around stablecoins focused on retail use cases, business adoption is now gaining ground at a faster pace. B2B stablecoin payments reached an annualised run rate of around US$36 billion by early 2025, reflecting growing interest from companies looking for more efficient ways to move money across borders. Many of these firms are drawn to the practical advantages, particularly faster settlement and lower transaction costs compared to traditional correspondent banking systems. Stablecoins are also being used to support treasury operations, especially when managing multi-currency exposure. Holding and transacting in digital US dollars reduces the need for repeated foreign exchange conversions and simplifies internal fund flows. Momentum in this segment is less about experimentation and more about solving operational challenges that existing systems struggle to address efficiently. APAC Is Setting the Pace While these developments are global in nature, the Asia-Pacific region is playing a leading role in shaping how stablecoins are being integrated into the financial system. Regulators across the region have taken steps to provide clearer frameworks, giving businesses the confidence to invest in long-term infrastructure. In Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore has introduced a regulatory regime for single-currency stablecoins, requiring issuers to maintain full reserve backing and meet strict disclosure and capital standards. Elsewhere, Japan has already put in place a legal framework for fiat-backed stablecoins, while Australia is also progressing its token mapping exercise to bring digital assets within existing regulatory structures. Hong Kong has just recently issued its first stablecoin licences under the Stablecoins Ordinance, granting approvals to HSBC and StanChart-Led Anchorpoint Financial, effective 10 April 2026. A mix of regulatory clarity, high digital adoption, and strong cross-border payment demand is creating an environment that supports both experimentation and real-world deployment. As a result, APAC is not only participating in the shift but helping to define how it develops. Less Visibility, More Utility The report ultimately points to a shift defined by integration rather than disruption. Stablecoins are gradually embedding into existing payment systems instead of operating outside them. Users are unlikely to notice these changes in practice, as payments continue to flow through familiar cards, wallets, and embedded interfaces. The difference lies in the infrastructure beneath, where digital assets increasingly function as a settlement layer within everyday transactions. As this infrastructure matures, stablecoins are likely to be viewed less as crypto instruments and more as a functional component of global money movement. Their long-term role will depend on how seamlessly they continue to integrate into the systems people and businesses already use. As stablecoins continue to integrate into existing financial systems, the upcoming webinar, “Why Stablecoins May Become The Backbone of 24/7 Global Trade,” scheduled for 15 April 2026, will explore these developments in greater detail. Register here. Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore based on an image by thanyakij-12 via Freepik. The post Stablecoins Are Plugging Into Card Rails Across APAC appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Banking Circle Group will appoint former UBS and ING Group CEO Ralph Hamers as Chairman of its Group Board of Directors from 20 April 2026. Hamers has also advised companies in the fintech ecosystem, including Arta and Grab. He will work with management to expand into new markets, deepen Banking Circle’s product ecosystem, and strengthen its operational and regulatory foundations. Ralph Hamers Ralph Hamers said, “For more than a decade, Banking Circle Group has innovated at the intersection of banking, technology and regulation. The team has built a one-of-a-kind platform and ecosystem, delivering real and compounding value to clients as they scale. I look forward to joining the board and partnering with the team and other stakeholders as we enter this exciting next chapter of growth – continuing to strengthen the platform, expanding globally and delivering even greater value to our clients.” Anders La Cour Anders La Cour, Co-Founder and CEO of Banking Circle Group, said, “I am immensely proud of the achievements of all my colleagues, and the trust that our clients have placed in us on the journey. Ralph’s experience will be critical as we continue to scale the business and prepare for the next phase of growth. We are very excited to welcome him into the business.” Banking Circle is a financial technology platform for global commerce that provides payments infrastructure to payment service providers, fintech firms, banks, global marketplaces, corporates and online merchants. The business has surpassed €500 million in revenue, with growth driven by client adoption, international expansion and continued investment in products, technology and its regulatory footprint. The firm expanded its Asia footprint in November 2025 when its Singapore subsidiary BC Payments secured a Major Payment Institution licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.     Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by mangpor2004 via Freepik   The post Banking Circle Taps Ralph Hamers as Chairman Amid Global Expansion appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

LankaPay and SLTDA have partnered with Alipay+ to attract more regional travellers and widen QR payment acceptance in Sri Lanka. The tie-up will market Sri Lanka through Alipay+’s network of more than 40 e-wallets and banking apps in Asia Pacific, which reaches over 1.8 billion user accounts. Travellers using Alipay+ partner apps will also get access to offers and promotions when making purchases through LankaQR, Sri Lanka’s national QR payment network. The initiative is expected to influence travel decisions, support tourist spending and contribute to tourism earnings. It also aims to bring more local merchants, especially micro and small businesses, into the digital payments ecosystem by encouraging them to accept cross-border QR payments through LankaQR. The partnership marks the first phase of a broader collaboration between LankaPay and SLTDA to support tourism growth and digital payment adoption in Sri Lanka.     Featureed image: Dinuka Perera, Deputy CEO, LankaPay; Udana Wickramasinghe, Director, Research & International Relations of SLTDA; Buddhika Hewawasam, Chairman – SLTDA; Channa De Silva, CEO, LankaPay; Michael Guo, General Manager, SEA ANZ South Asia – Alipay+; Sittipong (Pok) Kittiprapapong, Country Manager -Thailand, Philippines, and Emerging Markets – Alipay+; Britzee Capili, Business Development Manager – Philippines, Sri Lanka and Maldives – Alipay+; Tommy Yeoh, Regional Director of Global Affairs & Strategic Development, South Asia & ASEAN (ex SG, ID & VN) – Ant International The post LankaPay and Alipay+ Expand QR Payments for Tourists in Sri Lanka appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

It is a surprising disconnect when it is reported that more than 85% of banks are already deploying some form of AI, and yet most initiatives still struggle to move beyond the pilot stage. A recent MIT study only reinforces that gap when it suggests that as many as 95% of generative AI pilots fail to deliver measurable value, while Gartner has warned that over 40% of these projects could fail by 2027. AI may be everywhere in banking conversations, but tangible impact remains harder to pin down. For Cynthia Siantar, General Manager of Singapore and Hong Kong, Head of Investor Relations at Dyna.Ai, the explanation is far less mysterious than it seems. Having spent time inside one of Southeast Asia’s largest digital banks before moving into the AI world, she has seen both sides of the equation. Her conclusion is sharp. Cynthia Siantar “Even if the tech works … more often than not, the human systems do not,” she said during a conversation with Fintech News Singapore. It is a line that neatly captures the core problem facing financial institutions today. In her view, the issue rarely lies with the technology itself, but in how organisations operate and follow through on change. Build-Versus-Partner Trap One of the most common patterns Cynthia has observed is the instinct among large financial institutions to build AI capabilities in-house. “Especially for big financial institutions, they somehow would rather build than buy or partner, thinking that if they were to build it themselves, they’ll have full control,” she said. That sense of control is understandable, but it often slows things down, with development dragging out and solutions losing relevance by the time they are ready. Business users, meanwhile, struggle to see the relevance of what is being built for them. “I’ve heard the perspective of business teams say they don’t even know what the internal teams are doing, and whatever gets built just isn’t useful enough,” Cynthia noted. Startups and specialist vendors operate under a different kind of pressure, where solving real problems quickly is not optional but necessary to survive. Banks, by contrast, often approach AI as a technical build rather than a business tool, and that disconnect continues to widen the gap between experimentation and execution. @fintechnewsnetwork 95% AI projects fail, here’s how to fix it AI Fintech Banking ♬ original sound – Fintech News Network – Fintech News Network The Messy Middle of AI Execution Even when an AI solution technically works, it still has to survive the machinery of a large organisation. Enterprise environments tend to slow things down, as projects move through layers of stakeholders and approvals, often losing momentum before they have a chance to scale. “If it’s not something that’s visible enough to the management, it may never happen,” Cynthia said. “A lot of projects just get stuck, and eventually they fail.” There is also a human resistance factor that rarely gets discussed openly. AI projects can be unsettling, especially when they begin to change how teams work or shift responsibilities across functions, and not everyone is ready to adapt. “It’s scary,” she said. “They have to change the way they work, but many are comfortable where they are.” What Successful AI Execution Looks Like in Practice Despite these challenges, some banks are managing to move beyond pilots and deliver real returns from AI. From Cynthia’s experience, the difference often comes down to ownership, specifically whether there is a team inside the bank that is willing to take responsibility and carry the initiative forward. “What I’ve experienced so far is that it really comes down to having the right team from the bank that’s willing to try and take it forward,” she said. Banks that make AI work tend to have senior leadership driving the effort, creating room for teams to learn and refine as they go. The same thinking carries into how these banks work with external vendors. Rather than treating them as transactional suppliers, more effective institutions approach AI as a collaborative effort, refining solutions together as real operational needs become clearer. “I don’t consider my clients as just clients, they’re partners,” Cynthia said. The Incumbent Dilemma and Why Digital-Native Banks Move Faster One of the digital banks in the region also benefits from being a relatively young institution. With minimal legacy systems and fewer entrenched processes, digital-native banks tend to move more comfortably into experimentation, unburdened by the layers of technology and governance that slow larger organisations. “Minimum legacy,” Cynthia pointed out but, “They’re willing to try,” she continued. Leadership has played a role as well, with many CEOs and CROs who are strongly AI-focused, often pushing AI beyond short-term initiatives into a more sustained strategic priority for the bank. “Just being a digital bank is not sexy enough,” she said. “Now you have to be an AI-powered bank.” Incumbent banks, however, are far from standing still, with many investing heavily in AI and building internal capabilities while also experimenting with tools from hyperscalers such as Microsoft and Google. Where they tend to struggle is in how those efforts translate into business outcomes. Discussions inside larger institutions often drift toward technical comparisons and feature-level debates, with teams spending disproportionate time evaluating accuracy rather than whether the solution actually delivers value for the business. From the perspective of frontline teams, those distinctions matter far less than whether AI helps them work more efficiently or improve results. A deeper tension sits around ownership and control. Internal teams, particularly in established banks, often want to build and own AI capabilities themselves. That instinct can turn potential partnerships into competitive exercises, slowing progress in the process. “The fight isn’t just with hyperscalers,” Cynthia said. “It becomes a fight with the dream of wanting to build it themselves.” Many banks are still operating in an early phase of AI adoption, where experimentation is encouraged, and outcomes are not yet under intense scrutiny. But that grace period, Cynthia suggests, will not last forever. AI Joins the Working World Looking ahead, Cynthia is pragmatic about where banks should focus next, particularly when it comes to agentic AI. Given banks’ risk profiles, she encourages starting with internal-facing use cases. Smarter, compliant copilots that support relationship managers or internal teams allow banks to experiment while ensuring that responsibility for outcomes still sits with the business users, a structure that tends to give compliance teams greater comfort. That same approach still holds, starting small and learning quickly while staying close to business users to understand what actually drives impact. Beyond specific use cases, Cynthia sees a broader shift underway. AI is increasingly becoming part of everyday life, with individuals subscribing to personal AI tools to boost productivity. That familiarity, she believes, will naturally carry over into the workplace. “AI is becoming our assistant … essentially it is its own AI worker,” she said. In the future, organisations will not only manage human employees but AI agents as well. Functions such as HR and IT may evolve to oversee hybrid workforces, balancing people and machines, as familiarity with AI in daily life begins to shape expectations at work. That future may still feel some distance away for banks struggling to move beyond pilots, but Cynthia’s message is clear. The constraint is no longer the technology itself, but how institutions organise, take ownership, and follow through on change. In banking, making AI work is less about chasing the next model and more about fixing the systems around it. Catch up on more of Cynthia Siantar’s conversation in the full interview below. The post Why AI Keeps Failing in Banks, and What It Takes to Make It Work appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Vertex Holdings will appoint Temasek CEO Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara as Chairman from 15 April, as the firm posted more than US$100 million in FY2025 profit. He will succeed Teo Ming Kian, who is retiring from the Board, while Deputy Chairman Lee Kheng Nam will also step down. The Singapore-based venture capital firm said its FY2025 result was supported by portfolio exits, listings and valuation gains. Dilhan previously served on the Vertex Holdings Board from 2015 to 2018. Vertex said at least five portfolio companies could pursue listings over the next 12 months, subject to market conditions. The group manages close to US$7 billion in assets across Asia, Israel and the United States. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings. During Teo’s tenure, Vertex grew from nearly US$200 million in assets in 2012 to close to US$7 billion.     Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by ismode via Freepik   The post Vertex Names Temasek CEO Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara as Chairman appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

When Anthropic announced Claude Mythos Preview on 7 April 2026, it did something unprecedented. It built a frontier AI model so capable at discovering and exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities that it chose not to release it to the public. Instead, through the newly launched Project Glasswing, Anthropic granted limited, invitation-only access to roughly 40 to 50 organisations responsible for critical software infrastructure, including Amazon Web Services, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorgan Chase, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Palo Alto Networks. The company committed up to 100 million USD in usage credits to help these defenders identify and patch thousands of previously unknown high-severity vulnerabilities across every major operating system, web browser, and widely used application. Some of those flaws had remained undetected by human experts for up to 27 years. This was not marketing hype. Anthropic’s own testing showed Mythos Preview achieving a 72.4 percent success rate in generating working exploits, a dramatic leap from near-zero performance in earlier models like Claude Opus 4.6. The decision to withhold general release sent a clear message: the offensive potential of such AI now outpaces our collective defensive capabilities, raising risks to global critical infrastructure. For fintech leaders, CISOs, CIOs, regulators, and policymakers in Southeast Asia and beyond, Mythos is not a distant laboratory curiosity. It is a wake-up call that the traditional cybersecurity paradigm, built on detection, patching, and eradication, has reached its limits in an AI-accelerated, hyper-interconnected world. We must evolve. The Limits of the Old Playbook Traditional security approaches assume threats are relatively slow, human-driven, and containable through signatures, perimeters, periodic patches, and zero-trust verification. These methods still work reasonably well against known, legacy threats. But they were never designed for the scale and speed of AI-generated attacks. In today’s reality, a single Mythos-class model can autonomously audit millions of lines of code, simulate complex exploit chains, and surface zero-days faster than any human red team. When these capabilities proliferate, and they will, a vulnerability in one widely used library or cloud service can cascade across global supply chains, payment networks, trading platforms, and regulatory reporting systems. The status quo already delivers far more instability than we openly admit. IBM’s 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report shows the global average time to identify and contain a breach fell to 241 days, the lowest level in nearly a decade. Mandiant’s M-Trends 2025 report indicates that the global median dwell time for intrusions rose slightly to 11 days, with external notifications often taking 26 days or longer. These figures represent normalised, under-discussed costs: prolonged exposure, repeated minor incidents, patch-induced outages, and silent degradations that rarely make headlines but erode trust and resilience in financial systems. We tolerate this hidden fragility because it fits familiar compliance checkboxes and audit trails. Boards and insurers reward deterministic controls and reasonable security practices. Yet this approach offers zero scalable defence against the unknown unknowns that frontier AI now generates routinely. Why a Biological Paradigm Is Now Essential Nature has solved similar problems over billions of years. Biological immune systems do not pursue perfect eradication of every pathogen, an energetically wasteful and often impossible goal. Instead, they tolerate, compartmentalise, incorporate harmless elements as memory, and co-evolve with threats. Approximately 8 percent of the human genome consists of ancient endogenous retroviruses, some of which now play regulatory roles. The microbiome includes countless entities we live with rather than destroy. Defence is layered, distributed, adaptive, and memory-based. Evolve by design translates this lesson into cybersecurity. We shift from zero-trace eradication to bounded incorporation: treat threats as evolutionary pressure while keeping impact within acceptable probabilistic bounds, what I term martingale error. In simple terms, martingale error means we accept small, probabilistically bounded disruptions (for example, brief, isolated performance dips) rather than demanding impossible zero-degradation perfection. The goal is antifragility: systems that improve from stress rather than merely surviving it. Two interlocking mechanisms power this shift: Chaos Engineering as Immune Stress Testing Popularised by Netflix’s Chaos Monkey and its successors, chaos engineering intentionally injects controlled failures, simulated exploits, and live-like probes into production or shadow environments. Mature implementations have demonstrably improved availability, reduced mean time to recovery, and built confidence in resilience without catastrophic outages. In the new paradigm, defensive AI agents run continuous, scalable game days at machine speed. Impact stays tightly bounded, for example, transient degradation of less than 0.1 percent latency on isolated nodes for seconds, not system-wide collapse. Predatory Transformation as Active Adaptation Autonomous agents do not merely detect or block; they hunt, quarantine, analyse attacker behaviour, and actively transform the environment. Code paths rotate, implementations diversify via evolutionary algorithms, and harmless motifs from threats are incorporated as institutional memory, drawing on decades of research into artificial immune systems (AIS), including negative selection for anomaly detection and clonal selection for adaptation. This aligns with emerging automated Moving Target Defence (AMTD) techniques. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 25 percent of cloud applications will leverage AMTD features and concepts as built-in prevention approaches. The result is a living, self-improving system rather than a static fortress. Mapping the Risk Spectrum This approach handles different threat types more realistically than eradication ever could: Unexploited (dormant) zero-days become fuel rather than hidden time bombs. Proactive chaos simulations surface them early. Predatory agents diversify implementations around them, turning potential time bombs into low-cost evolutionary fuel without waiting for the next Patch Tuesday. Active attacks in progress trigger real-time predator-prey dynamics. The system mutates live, feeds deceptive data, isolates impact locally, and propagates learned immunity network-wide. Dwell time shrinks dramatically because adaptation happens at machine speed. Full-on propagating viruses, ransomware, or worms are compartmentalised like mild endemic infections. The threat provides signal for rapid co-evolution. Instead of chasing perfect removal (which often fails in interconnected environments), the ecosystem incorporates lessons and neutralises future variants faster than attackers can iterate. Evolution is never unbounded. Software cannot grow wings tomorrow. Hard constraints are essential: maximum runtime overhead (typically less than 5 percent), strict backward compatibility, energy and performance budgets, regulatory compliance floors, and human-defined fitness functions tied to business KPIs. Rollback mechanisms, cryptographic signalling limits between agents, and emergency kill switches prevent runaway behaviour or autoimmunity-style over-reactions. Human oversight remains the ultimate policy layer. Fintech Risks in Southeast Asia: Why This Matters Locally In Southeast Asia’s fast-growing fintech sector, these challenges are especially acute. Rapid digital banking expansion in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore has created highly interconnected ecosystems reliant on cross-border instant payment schemes such as DuitNow, PromptPay linkages, and regional QR payment networks. A single zero-day in a shared cloud library or open-source component could cascade through payment rails, lending platforms, and regtech compliance systems. Supply-chain attacks targeting fintech vendors already pose outsized risks in a region where many institutions operate hybrid legacy-modern stacks. Traditional patch-and-eradicate methods struggle with the speed of AI-driven threats precisely when trust and uptime are most critical for financial inclusion and economic growth. Addressing Legitimate Critique from Traditional CISOs and CIOs Resistance is understandable and should be engaged seriously. Many CISOs will argue that chaos engineering and predatory transformation introduce unacceptable instability, especially in regulated fintech and critical infrastructure environments. Probabilistic, self-mutating systems are harder to audit, certify, and insure. Short executive tenures (often 18 to 30 months) incentivise risk aversion. Legacy maintenance already consumes 60 to 80 percent of many IT budgets; bold experiments threaten headcount, vendor relationships, and career safety. “We followed best practices and were breached by an AI zero-day” is easier to defend than “our evolving system had an unexpected mutation.” These concerns are valid, but the status quo already delivers systemic instability, just in familiar, under-reported forms. The new paradigm reframes risk rather than eliminating it: from rare but catastrophic whole-body failure (cascading collapse across interconnected financial rails) to more frequent yet treatable localised infections. The latter is far more survivable, learnable, and containable. Localised impact can be isolated, studied, and used to strengthen the broader system. Moreover, withholding Mythos from the public does not solve proliferation. State-sponsored teams operate without Anthropic’s safety guardrails and are almost certainly developing comparable or superior capabilities. Sophisticated non-state actors and even skilled individuals with access to advancing open-source models are closing the gap rapidly, likely within the next 12 to 24 months. Static defences hand the initiative to whoever deploys offensive AI first. In fintech, where speed, interconnectedness, and trust are paramount, clinging to archaic approaches is not prudence; it is deferred catastrophe. A Pragmatic Path Forward, With Policy Support Implementation must be hybrid and phased, not a big-bang replacement. Begin with shadow canaries and non-critical workloads. Expand consortia like Project Glasswing into broader industry pilots across ASEAN fintech hubs. Maintain traditional controls as the innate immune layer while layering on adaptive capabilities. Define success through measurable resilience metrics: faster recovery times, lower aggregate impact under stress, and bounded degradation, not the unattainable zero-incident ideal. Policy and regulatory frameworks can accelerate responsible adoption. Regulators could introduce safe harbour protections for organisations experimenting within clearly defined evolutionary bounds. Cyber insurers should shift incentives toward resilience outcomes (for example, quantified recovery speed and martingale-style impact tolerances) rather than pure checklist compliance. Governments and industry bodies can fund shared chaos engineering sandboxes and mandate evolutionary resilience reporting for systemically important financial infrastructure. In Southeast Asia, where digital finance growth is rapid and interconnectedness with global systems is deepening, such forward-looking policy could position the region as a leader in next-generation cyber resilience. The building blocks already exist: decades of artificial immune system research, proven chaos engineering practices, early AMTD deployments, and the defensive potential of frontier AI itself. Mythos did not create the problem; it simply made the obsolescence of the old paradigm impossible to ignore. Interconnectedness has long been viewed as cybersecurity’s greatest weakness. Evolve by design flips that script: it turns shared threat signals into collective strength. Like every living system that has survived predation across deep time, our digital infrastructure must adapt within realistic boundaries, or risk being out-evolved by those who weaponize AI without restraint. The choice is no longer whether to change. It is whether we evolve deliberately and boundedly now, or allow the next Mythos-scale event to force a far more painful transition later. Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by freepik via Freepik The post Love the Virus: Anthropic’s Mythos Forces Cybersecurity’s Biological Turn appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Thailand’s SEC has opened a public consultation on rules that would allow crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the country. The proposal covers crypto ETFs, the outsourcing of digital asset investment management for mutual funds, and the role of fund supervisors. Public comments are open until 11 May 2026. The SEC is proposing to allow spot crypto ETFs in the form of mutual funds that invest directly in crypto assets. These funds would follow a passive strategy and maintain average net exposure of at least 80 percent of NAV to a single crypto asset over the accounting year. Bitcoin and Ethereum would be the first eligible assets, while other qualifying crypto assets would need to be highly liquid and widely accepted. Asset management companies seeking to launch crypto ETFs would need to show they have the staff, systems and service providers needed to run them. Fund holdings would mainly have to be kept with SEC-regulated digital asset custodians, and the products would be listed and traded only on the stock exchange. Investor safeguards and market limits The SEC is also proposing added investor safeguards, including clearer disclosure, investor education, and checks to confirm investors understand the risks before trading. The framework also says crypto ETF investments should match an investor’s risk tolerance and avoid excessive concentration in crypto assets. The regulator also plans to amend existing rules to let Thai mutual funds and private funds invest in local crypto ETFs. Previously, they could only invest in foreign crypto ETFs within existing limits. At the same time, the SEC said it would not allow alternative products linked to foreign crypto ETFs in the initial stage, including depositary receipts tied to overseas crypto ETFs. The consultation also covers related rule changes for mutual funds investing in digital assets. Any outsourced digital asset investment management would have to be handled by a licensed digital asset fund manager. The SEC is also proposing to allow qualified digital asset custodians and other digital asset business operators to act as fund supervisors for crypto ETFs, subject to requirements on financial strength, personnel and operational systems. The proposal follows resolutions by the SEC Board in December 2025 and the Capital Market Supervisory Board in February 2026 to move ahead with rules supporting crypto ETFs in Thailand.     Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on images by madushankalm and bloodua via Freepik The post Thailand Moves Closer to Crypto ETFs as SEC Opens Public Consultation appeared first on Fintech Singapore.

Shipping companies paying crypto tolls to pass through the Strait of Hormuz could face significant sanctions exposure. According to Chainalysis, such payments could leave maritime operators exposed to enforcement action, fines and reputational damage, as Iran remains subject to broad US and international sanctions. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, is reportedly extracting fees starting at US$1 per barrel of oil from vessels seeking safe passage. These payments reportedly involve IRGC-linked intermediaries, with fees negotiated in yuan, stablecoins or other digital currencies. Chainalysis noted that transacting with sanctioned entities typically requires specific approval or a licence from the relevant authorities. Sanctions exposure and digital asset use While some reports have specifically referenced bitcoin, Chainalysis suggested that stablecoins may be more likely to be used if such a system is implemented at scale. The firm linked this to Iran’s historical use of stablecoins for liquidity and price stability in illicit trade. It also estimated that IRGC-linked activity accounted for about 50% of Iran’s total crypto ecosystem in the fourth quarter of 2025. Blockchain transparency can help regulators and compliance teams trace fund flows in near real time. Chainalysis added that identifying entities that have interacted with sanctioned wallets is becoming increasingly important for exchanges, financial institutions and shipping companies monitoring exposure to IRGC-linked activity. Maintaining visibility into these flows is likely to remain important as the situation develops.     Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on images by user6371061 and muhammad.abdullah via Freepik The post Hormuz Crypto Toll Payments Could Expose Shipping Firms to Sanctions Risk appeared first on Fintech Singapore.