Japan’s megabanks are not the only Japanese financial services companies keen on growing their fintech footprint. The SoftBank spinoff SBI Holdings is a digital focused conglomerate with a securities division, a digital bank that is reportedly Japan’s largest by deposits, an asset management arm, an insurance business and a venture capital arm.

South Korea’s digital banks have been among the most successful online lenders in East Asia, benefiting from the network effect of their respective digital services platforms, relatively weak incumbent digital offerings and strong demand from the country’s retail banking market for new types of products. Yet as they expand into new market segments, in some cases rapidly, regulators are bound to take notice. This holds especially true for the mortgage loan segment.

In a rapidly digitizing world, many Asian countries are going cashless in order to create better, faster, and cheaper payment infrastructure. But should 100% cashless be the goal?

While cashless transactions offer clear benefits, significant barriers exist to achieving a completely cashless society. Infrastructure limitations, inadequate digital literacy, and disparities in access to technology hinder the widespread adoption of digital payments in many Asian countries. In addition, cultural preferences and the role of cash in informal economies are tough to dislodge.

In recent years, Japan’s largest banks have expanded rapidly in emerging Southeast Asia, from Indonesia to Thailand to Vietnam, as well as India. At the same time, they are making strategic investments in advanced economies such as the United States and Israel. With growth prospects at home facing constraints, from the aging population to the fact that the Japanese population is well banked, this search for growth overseas looks set to continue for some time.

Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) is among the most fintech-forward commercial banks in Asia. What makes SCB's digital finance strategy successful is that it leverages all the advantages of incumbency while using technology to develop products for the digital age.

Despite high expectations for China's digital currency, adoption of the e-CNY for retail payments in the country remains modest at best. A key issue, and one we have been discussing for several years now, is interoperability with the existing, very effective digital payments ecosystem. The e-CNY is unlikely to be more than a novelty unless it can be fully interoperable with Alipay and WeChat Pay.

Asean has a cross-border payments dream that is slowly moving closer to coming true. Despite the very real interoperability challenges, Southeast Asian countries nonetheless seem determined to build a payments rail of their own that can boost the use of local currencies – perhaps at the dollar’s expense – while speeding up transaction time, lowering transaction costs and strengthening connectivity among their respective financial systems. The latest countries to sign onto this project are the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei.