For several years, the Asia-Pacific region has been a hotbed of fintech funding. Despite, or perhaps because of the coronavirus pandemic, fintechs have had very little trouble raising cash. After all, when the whole economy is moving online, banking needs be digital too. However, shaky global economic and geopolitical conditions appear to be finally starting to weigh on Asia fintech funding, with the second quarter seeing a clear drop-off in big-ticket fundraising. 

In August 2021, The Bangkok Post ran an article entitled “Thailand ripe for a digital banking battle” that captured the conventional wisdom about the prospects for online lenders in the kingdom, which is that there is a significant market opportunity for them due to lagging digitization among incumbents rather than the existence of a significant unbanked population. About 82% of Thais have a bank account, though by one estimate 48% of the population is underserved. Yet the opportunity for digital banks could be shrinking as big traditional lenders accelerate digital transformation and the government introduces real-time retail payments possible with only a mobile number.

Internationalization of the renminbi has taken a different path than what seemed likely when the process began in the early 2010s. At the time, many observers expected China would gradually open its capital account and allow its currency to float freely. These steps were seen as integral for China to achieve a commensurate status in the international financial system that it already enjoys in the global economy. Yet political considerations have increasingly outweighed financial ones, and renminbi internationalization is instead evolving inside a less open ecosystem than expected.

The digitization of financial services in Taiwan has dovetailed with rising online scams, but compared with many other economies, Taiwan did not experience a surge in such illicit activity for most of the pandemic. The reason is that Taiwan adhered to a de facto zero-Covid policy that kept infections down for more than two years. It was only in the past few months when the hyper-infectious omicron variant penetrated Taiwan’s defenses amid a wobbly global macroeconomic environment that online financial crime began to skyrocket.

In February, Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would launch a central bank digital currency in the 2022-23 fiscal year. In her budget speech, she said that introducing a digital rupee would give a big boost to the digital economy and lead to a more efficient and cheaper currency management system. Yet since then, there has been no obvious progress on India’s CBDC project, and even some measured pushback against the idea.

Slowly but surely, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending is becoming a sustainable and regulated industry in Indonesia. A recent regulatory crackdown aimed at consolidating the sector into a smaller number of compliant, above-board firms has borne fruit. Unlike China, Indonesia has decided that P2P lending can serve a legitimate financial inclusion role. Having the benefit of hindsight, Jakarta moved to proactively regulate P2P lending.

South Korea’s new president Yoon Suk-yeol entered office planning to make his country friendlier to cryptocurrency. During his campaign, Yoon said, “To realize the unlimited potential of the virtual asset market, we must overhaul regulations that are far from reality and unreasonable.” Though Yoon likely remains keen to carry out his campaign promises about crypto, it will be no easy task. He faces conservative, crypto-skeptical financial regulators, a parliament controlled by South Korea’s main political opposition, the Democratic Party of Korea, and now the fallout over the abrupt collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin.

Sea Group’s share price has tanked over the past six months, falling 75% to roughly US$78. The company has underperformed in many respects, even in its profitable gaming unit Garena. As Garena’s growth slows, Sea will have even more trouble financing its unprofitable e-commerce and fintech units, unless the company finds a way to reduce costs. Yet it continues to expand aggressively in regions far from home, with Latin America a key area of focus.

Hong Kong’s virtual banks arrived at a tumultuous time in the city, facing the twin challenges of political tumult and Covid-19. However, the pandemic may have helped spur greater uptake of the online lenders’ services, especially now that Hong Kong has experienced a more severe Covid wave. Important questions remain though: How big is the opportunity in a city of 7. 4 million where 93% of people over 14 have a bank account? And is it realistic to assume that expansion to the mainland will be possible?

Platform companies have not had the best 2022, especially loss-making ones based in Southeast Asia. Amid global economic jitters, investors are souring on inflated tech valuations and stocks. We had thought Indonesia’s GoTo, with its laser focus on its massive home market and strong fundamentals, might be able to buck this trend, and at first it seemed the company might do just that. After all, its IPO was successful. But in recent weeks, the company’s share price has plummeted, mirroring the trajectories of its peers like Sea Group, Grab, Alibaba and Paytm.