Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has historically taken a hands-off approach to cryptocurrency focused on segregating the local digital assets ecosystem from the banking system – which it wants to protect from volatility and risk. As long as banks stay away from digital assets, the FSC is willing to let local crypto exchanges operate with a high degree of autonomy provided they pay their taxes and keep on the straight and narrow. However, Taiwan has since the collapse of FTX been dealing with a surge in crypto-related crime, both money laundering and fraud. Criminals are exploiting unsuspecting investors and taking advantage of limited knowledge of digital assets among the general public, lawmakers and regulators.

Many platform companies have tried to replicate the success of Alipay and Tenpay as super apps, but very few have been successful. The concept has been difficult to execute in Southeast Asia, a culturally diverse region with many different regulatory regimes. Indonesia’s GoTo has always stood out, however, in that its main focus has been on its huge home market and it has avoided overextending itself in the manner of other super apps.

2023 may be remembered as the year that the Web3 bubble burst. Hype about the third iteration of the internet had reached a feverish pitch by early last year, though actual use cases remained limited. Yet amid the highest interest rates in three decades, as well as stubborn inflation, investors started to get cold feet about what is still a nebulous and nascent ecosystem underpinned by technology that many central banks do not trust.

India’s $357.5 billion payments sector has proven challenging for the U.S. tech’s giants. Only Google has established a strong foothold, while Facebook, WhatsApp and Amazon have been unable to grow their market share substantively, despite their respect strengths in social media, messaging and e-commerce.

Hong Kong has historically thrived as a financial center because of its ability to serve as a conduit for capital to and from mainland China. Under the one country, two systems governance model, Hong Kong’s financial system is more open than that of any mainland city, bestowing unique advantages on the territory. Meanwhile, with its capital markets flagging, Hong Kong has sought to use so-called “cornerstone investors” from the mainland – local government entities – to revive its IPO market. Results thus far have been underwhelming, suggesting the need for a more market-oriented approach.

It would be inaccurate to call retail payments on India’s paramount United Payments Interface (UPI) rail a full-fledged duopoly, but Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe do dominate this market with a combined 86% market share. PhonePe currently has a 48.3% share of UPI retail payments, while Google Pay has 37.6%. Paytm has a share of about 9%. No other company even has a full 1% share of the UPI market.

Given the fragmentation that characterizes many parts of Asia Pacific’s fintech sector, consolidation could improve the competitive environment, reducing the need to heavily subsidize customers and allowing firms to invest more in research and development as well as improving the customer experience. Yet across the region, from the most affluent economies to those that are still developing, big-ticket M&A transactions remain few and far between. In the past five years, there have only been a handful, such as the 2020 merger of Gojek and Tokopedia, the National Bank of Australia’s acquisition of the Aussie neobank 86 400 in 2021 and Square’s purchase of Afterpay in 2021.

Although the narrative in the financial industry is that digital is better, that is not always the case. Many rural economies across Asia operate on a largely informal and cash basis. A few factors are driving this. Firstly, there is often a lack of infrastructure to support cashless payments, such as limited internet access or banking services. Secondly, the rural populations often have a general distrust or lack of familiarity with digital payment systems. Additionally, the informal nature of many businesses in rural areas lends itself to cash transactions, which are perceived as more straightforward.

To reach net zero by 2050, Japan aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 46% compared to 2013 levels by 2030. To support that objective, in June 2021, the Japanese government announced its Green Growth Strategy and created a US$15 billion Green Innovation Fund. An additional important part of Japan’s path to net zero will be the world’s first sovereign transition bonds.

South Korea has long had an enthusiastic cryptocurrency investing community. According to the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU), by mid-2024 Korea will have about 6 million crypto investors, equivalent to 11.5% of the population. At the same time, crypto related crime is rising in Korea. While the most infamous example remains Do Kwon’s multi-billion-dollar TerraUSD-Luna fraud, other, smaller scale scams are proliferating, necessitating new regulation to protect investors and both deter and penalize crime. According to the FoFIU, Korean digital asset exchanges flagged 49% more suspicious transactions in 2023 compared to 2022.