SEA Daily Brief: Anwar tells SC Malaysia forum to embrace digital risk, MAS and Thai SEC close two parallel crypto consultations

Anwar Uses Securities Commission Malaysia Forum to Argue GLCs Should Accept Calculated Losses on AI and Digital Ventures

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim addressed the 12th Malaysia MADANI Scholars Forum, titled 'Driving Malaysia's Position in the New Wave of Global Capital Flows', at Securities Commission Malaysia on the evening of Friday, May 22. He told the audience that the government is willing to accept calculated losses by government-linked companies in strategic sectors — naming the digital economy and artificial intelligence explicitly — provided there is transparency, good governance and policy clarity. His exact framing: "As long as it is transparent, good governance, clarity (of) policies, the issue of loss is not the question."

Finance Minister II Amir Hamzah Azizan, speaking at the same forum, lined up the strategic investment menu — advanced semiconductor packaging, AI, data centres and the electrical and electronics sector — as the value-chain targets that justify the risk appetite. The forum was hosted at the capital markets regulator rather than the Ministry of Finance, an unusually direct signal that SC Malaysia is being positioned as the policy venue for how Malaysian institutional capital is mobilised into AI infrastructure.

MAS Closes Consultation on Permissionless-Chain Cryptoassets; ISDA's May 20 Response Pushes Back on the Exposure Caps

The Monetary Authority of Singapore's consultation on the prudential treatment of cryptoassets issued on permissionless blockchains, published on April 17, closed on May 18. The paper proposes that qualifying permissionless cryptoassets can receive Group 1 prudential treatment — the favourable bucket — subject to principle-based safeguards. For locally incorporated banks, exposures would be capped at 2% of Tier 1 capital and issuances at 5% of Tier 1; Singapore branches of foreign banks face 0.2% of total branch assets in exposure and 1% in issuance. Implementation is targeted for January 1, 2027.

ISDA published its industry response on May 20. It welcomed the move to a more risk-sensitive, technology-neutral stance — flagging that this is the first major jurisdiction to break with the Basel Committee's effective ban on Group 1 treatment for public-chain assets — but argued the proposed exposure caps create a dollar-for-dollar capital charge that would push tokenisation activity offshore. ISDA also asked for cleaner treatment of stablecoins and tokenised assets where the literal Basel network and validator tests don't map onto how those instruments actually work.

Thailand SEC Closes Derivatives Consultation Letting Licensed Crypto Operators Apply Without a Separate Entity

The Thailand SEC's public consultation on revising the Derivatives Act licensing framework — Release No. 81/2026, published April 23 — closed on May 20. The proposal would let firms already licensed under Thai digital-asset rules (exchange, broker or dealer) apply for derivatives-business licences directly through their existing legal entity, removing the requirement to incorporate a separate company, hire duplicate compliance staff and maintain parallel capital reserves. The paper introduces new licence categories including S-3, D-DAIA and D-DAF, tiered to the type of derivatives activity. SEC Secretary-General Pornanong Budsaratragoon said the change would 'help promote more inclusive market growth, facilitate diversification and more effective risk management'.

This is a distinct workstream from the spot Bitcoin and Ether ETF push the SEC flagged at SEABW: that file targets Q3 2026 product approval, while this file rewires the licensing plumbing that lets domestic crypto firms hedge and offer regulated futures. The SEC also signalled that exchanges holding both spot and derivatives licences will face additional conflict-of-interest controls given their access to client order-book data.

Eyes on the Day Ahead

Both consultation files (MAS and Thai SEC) now move into agency review — watch for MAS's response paper on permissionless-chain prudential treatment and the Thai SEC board sign-off on derivatives licensing, both of which can land any time over the next 4–6 weeks. In Malaysia, Securities Commission Malaysia's next quarterly capital markets briefing and any follow-up framing of the MADANI Forum's GLC-risk thesis are the things to track over the next 5 days. Indonesian markets reopen after the weekend with Danantara's September 1 commodity-export consolidation still the dominant macro overhang.