Bank Negara Malaysia and the HKMA Agree a Workstream on Compliant Cross-Border Stablecoin Use Cases
Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) met in Hong Kong on October 2 and agreed to deepen cooperation on digital assets, tokenisation, trade finance and financial infrastructure. They will set up a joint, policy-focused workstream to explore compliant cross-border stablecoin use cases between Hong Kong and Malaysia. The report does not say a formal document was signed.
The agenda extended to infrastructure. The two sides will explore enhanced connectivity between their real-time gross settlement systems, including a possible link between Hong Kong's Central Moneymarkets Unit (CMU) and Malaysia's RENTAS. They will also look at data-driven trade finance for SMEs using the Commercial Data Interchange (CDI) and CargoX, joint promotion of local currency use in bilateral trade, cyber resilience, anti-scam and anti-fraud work, and Islamic finance. HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue called the meeting "an important milestone" in deepening collaboration between the two institutions.
MAS Issues Final Guidelines on AI Risk Management for Financial Institutions, With Compliance Phased Through October 2028
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued its final Guidelines on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Risk Management, applying to all financial institutions and all forms of AI. The guidelines set four key expectations: stronger oversight of AI risks with clear accountabilities, identification and management of risks across the AI life cycle, management of third-party AI risk, and risk-proportionate application. Institutions are expected to manage AI risk at both the enterprise and individual use-case level.
MAS consulted on the guidelines in November 2025 and says it retained the key expectations while refining them in response to feedback, including questions on using existing governance structures, embedded AI, and when basic AI governance policies are sufficient. Sections 3 to 4 take effect from October 7, 2027, and Sections 5 and 6 are to be met by October 7, 2028. MAS Deputy Managing Director Ho Hern Shin said regulatory clarity lets institutions "innovate with confidence".
OCBC and Ant International Launch a Tokenised Deposit Solution for Corporate Treasury Across Singapore and Malaysia
OCBC and Ant International launched a tokenised deposit solution for corporate treasury management and intra-group liquidity transfers, powered by Ant International's WhaleRTP platform. It moves Singapore dollar and US dollar liquidity between Singapore and Malaysia outside traditional banking hours, and the companies cite immutable audit trails, less manual reconciliation and fewer batch-processing and settlement cut-off constraints. No transaction volumes, values or client numbers were disclosed.
It follows other OCBC tokenisation work this year: a tokenised physical gold fund with Lion Global Investors in April, and cross-border US dollar and domestic Singapore dollar tokenised deposit transactions on Swift's ledger in September.
Eyes on the Day Ahead
No dated regulatory deadline from today's three stories falls in the next 24 to 48 hours, so this looks a few days out instead: whether BNM or the HKMA publish scope or participants for the stablecoin workstream, and whether MAS releases a fuller response to its November 2025 consultation feedback. Neither has been scheduled in the sources reviewed.
Layer 7 Ventures is a research-driven firm focused on AI and cryptocurrency in Southeast Asia. Views expressed are those of the firm and do not constitute investment advice.
