SEA Daily Brief: SC and Bursa Launch a Corporate Value-Up Guidebook for Malaysia's Top 88 Listcos, OCBC Wires Singpass Into Cross-Border Account Opening, and Singapore's Arki Finance Wins an MAS Wealth Licence

SC and Bursa Malaysia Launch the MY Value Up Guidebook for the 88 Largest Listed Companies

The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) and Bursa Malaysia launched the MY Value Up Programme Guidebook at the Invest Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Conference 2026, with Deputy Prime Minister Dato' Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi officiating. The guidebook operationalises the MY Value Up Programme — a structured initiative under the Capital Market Masterplan 2026-2030 that the SC and Bursa first introduced in April — by giving public listed companies a common reference for communicating growth targets, capital-allocation priorities and forward-looking disclosures. Participation is voluntary but strongly encouraged.

The programme targets the 88 largest listed companies on Bursa Malaysia, each with a minimum market capitalisation of roughly RM4 billion and collectively representing about 80% of total market capitalisation; the SC and Bursa said they have already engaged senior management at most of them. The rollout runs in two phases: 2026 is a familiarisation year in which companies assess their focus areas and engage with regulators, and from 2027 targeted companies are expected to begin publishing their value-up plans publicly, establishing a market-facing baseline for investor scrutiny.

OCBC Malaysia Accepts Singpass for Business Account Opening, Cutting Cross-Border Onboarding to Five Working Days

OCBC Malaysia began accepting Singapore's national digital identity, Singpass, for business account opening, allowing Singapore citizens and permanent residents to verify themselves remotely during the application rather than in person. The bank said the integration cuts processing time for eligible Singapore-linked SMEs from roughly three weeks to about five working days, with Know Your Customer reviews still conducted after submission. Businesses holding OCBC accounts in both countries can also request single sign-on access that consolidates their Singapore and Malaysia account views into one dashboard.

OCBC framed the move against rising cross-border demand: it said its Malaysian SME client base with Singapore-linked ownership grew by more than 10% annually between 2023 and 2025, led by food-and-beverage and manufacturing firms, and that activity is expected to build further through the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone. Accepting a foreign sovereign digital identity for domestic onboarding is a notable step in the practical interoperability of the two countries' financial rails.

Singapore's Arki Finance Wins an MAS Capital Markets Licence Ahead of a Mass-Affluent Wealth Platform

Arki Finance, a Singapore wealth-management fintech, received a Capital Markets Services licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), clearing it to offer regulated investment advisory and portfolio-management services to individual investors ahead of a public platform launch later in 2026. The company is targeting Singapore's mass-affluent segment — the band of customers too large for retail robo-advice but underserved by private banking.

The team is drawn from the city-state's asset-management establishment: chief executive and co-founder David Ng previously served as deputy CEO of CSOP Asset Management, where he helped grow assets under management from $3.7 billion to over $15 billion, and the board is chaired by Esmond Choo, a former senior executive director of UOB Kay Hian. Advisers include former executives from Lion Global Investors, BlackRock's iShares and Visa. Ng said the existing options for Singapore's mass affluent are "outdated" and that Arki is "building the alternative."

Eyes on the Day Ahead

Near-term, watch for follow-through from Invest Malaysia Kuala Lumpur, where value-up momentum tends to surface early signals about which government-linked companies will lead the 2026 familiarisation phase — the first named participants would convert today's framework into a screenable list. On the cross-border front, any move to pair OCBC's Singpass onboarding with deeper PayNow-DuitNow or shared business-registry integration would mark the Johor-Singapore SEZ's identity layer maturing from pilot to plumbing. And in Singapore wealthtech, expect further MAS Capital Markets Services approvals over the coming days as more advice-led platforms position for the mass-affluent segment ahead of second-half launches.