Across Southeast Asia, traditional banks and fintechs have been inking partnerships. The fintechs, despite the "fin" in their name, almost always have stronger technology than banking acumen. In contrast, banks have deep financial expertise and clunky legacy IT systems.

In the Kingdom of Cambodia, the line between traditional banking and fintech is increasingly blurred. ABA Bank, a traditional lender which has become a leader in digital banking, is a good example. In a January report, AsiaMoney notes that the bank has undergone an unlikely transformation. Founded in 1996, ABA did not perform especially well for the first 13 years of its existence. But a decade ago, under the guidance of some deep-pocked investors from Central Asia, the bank hit the reset button and changed its business strategy. Today, ABA is a leader among Cambodian banks with assets of about US$4 billion.

Chinese fintech giant Ant Financial is reportedly working with banks to restart a long-stalled initial public offering. In its most recent fundraising round, held in June 2018, Ant was valued at US$150 billion. With a price tag like that, when Ant does go public, the listing will be pathbreaking for Asian companies. The company has not given a timetable for the IPO, but Credit Suisse and China International Corp. are involved in initial preparations, according to The Financial Times.

American Express has been trying to enter the China market since before the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. As China's financial reform stalled, so did the US card giant's prospects in the world's largest consumer market. Now that Washington and Beijing have reached a phase-one trade deal, AmEx is finally poised to start doing business in China. In early January, shortly before the trade deal was signed, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) accepted AmEx's application to begin China operations.

The private-equity unit of United Overseas Bank has co-led a US$31.2 million Series A funding round for the Thai fintech start-up Lightnet along with South Korea's Hanwha Investment and Securities and Japan's Seven Bank. Other investors included Singapore's Hopeshine Ventures, Signum Capital and Du Capital as well as Taiwan-based Uni-President Asset Holdings and Zhejiang-based HashKey Capital. Lightnet was co-founded by Chatchaval Jiaravanon, a member of the family that owns Thailand's Charoen Pokphand Group, and Tridbodi Arunanondchai, a tech entrepreneur and former investment banker.

No China fintech segment has fallen faster and harder than peer-to-peer lending. Not even cryptocurrency, which Beijing all but outlawed, has been crippled like P2P lending. The reason is simple: The scam-ridden P2P lending segment robbed hundreds of thousands of retail investors of their life savings. Some distraught victims even committed suicide. There were massive Ponzi schemes.  Ezubao, a now defunct P2P lender which was based in Anhui, defrauded US$7.6 billion from 900,000 investors before it imploded. A Beijing court sentenced Ezubao's founder to life in prison in 2017. Shanlin Finance, which was based in Shanghai, swindled US$9 billion from investors before authorities broke it up in 2018.

In Beijing's view, scams of that size threaten social stability. With that in mind, the government had no choice but to crack down on the largely unregulated segment. To be sure, Beijing's dragnet has snagged some compliant lenders as well as miscreants. Yet, from the government's perspective, that's a small price to pay to assert control over the industry and reduce systemic financial risk. As of the end of 2019, just 343 P2P firms were still operating, down from 6,000 at the sector's 2015 peak. Authorities in Gansu, Hebei, Hunan and Sichuan Province as well as the municipality of Chongqing shut P2P lending down completely. 

The Philippines has issued a digital banking license to Tonik Financial, a Singapore-based fintech. The firm claims to be both the first native digital bank in the Philippines and the Southeast Asia region. The Philippines central bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), approved Tonik for a license that will allow it to offer a full range of retail banking services, with a focus on retail deposits and consumer loans.

Although the U.S. and China are on the verge of signing a phase one trade deal, the trade war is far from over. Most of the hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs the two countries have levied on each other over the past 19 months remain in place. The bilateral relationship is as fraught as at any time since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979. Yet, the "financial war" forecast by pundits hasn't materialized.

2020 is off to a good start for South Korean fintech unicorn Viva Republica. The PayPal-backed firm received preliminary approval from South Korea's Financial Services Commission for a license to operates its neobank Toss Bank. Toss Bank will be permitted to offer a suite a retail banking services, including current accounts, credit and loan products. Toss Bank is expected to launch in the first half of 2021.

Viva Republica can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The FSC rejected its initial digital banking license application last year on the grounds that it had a problematic ownership structure - ie: a tech company holding a large majority stake - and ability to raise funds. The FSC noted that Toss Bank lost 44.5 billion won in 2018, raising doubts about the neobank's plan to increase its capital more than fourfold in three years. The FSC's point about funding was salient, given the tendency of fintechs to burn through cash without blazing a trail to profitability. Viva Republica evidently revised its fundraising plan in a satisfactory manner on the second go.

Vietnam is ready to finalize plans for a regulatory sandbox for fintech banking and cashless payments, according to Asia financial magazine The Asset. The Vietnamese government issued Resolution 01 on January 2, which outlined significant tasks and solutions to bolster the country’s socio-economic development in 2020. The sandbox is expected to support the growing sharing economy in Vietnam as well as numerous local startups.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has been a supporter of the fintech sector since 2017. In addition to establishing a fintech-focused steering committee, the SBV created the initial proposal for a fintech sandbox in Vietnam. Deputy Director of Payments at the SBV, Ngo Van Duc, said that the Vietnamese government needed to develop new regulations and policies to ensure the continued development of the fintech sector in Vietnam and that the creation of a regulatory sandbox for fintech was an urgent need.

The former Portuguese colony of Macau, China's answer to Las Vegas, has long struggled to diversify its economy away from gaming. Efforts to promote MICE and family tourism have had limited success. After all, Macau is small and faces stiff competition in the region.

Yet, amidst relentless political turmoil in Hong Kong - China's only global financial center - Beijing has found a new opportunity for Macau: offshore finance. While Macau cannot replace Hong Kong, it might be transformed into a secondary offshore financial center for China. Macau benefits from the same one country, two systems model that governs Hong Kong, although the former's legal system is Portuguese rather than British, and doesn't enjoy the same prestige.