SEA Daily Brief: ADB Raises Its 2026 Southeast Asia Growth Forecast on the AI Investment Cycle, Regional Startup Funding Hits $7.25 Billion, and Malaysia Explores a Ringgit-Pegged Stablecoin

ADB Raises Its 2026 Southeast Asia Growth Forecast to 4.7%, Crediting the AI Investment Cycle — With Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand Up and the Philippines Cut

The Asian Development Bank's September 2026 Asian Development Outlook, published September 23, raised its 2026 growth forecast for developing Southeast Asia to 4.7%, up from 4.6% in the July edition, and its 2027 forecast to 4.9% from 4.8%. ADB President Masato Kanda attributed the upgrade to "strong investment, government stimulus, and robust technology exports driven by the global artificial intelligence (AI) investment cycle," noting that surging global shipments of semiconductor chips and data-centre components offset drag from high energy prices and severe weather. The wider Asia and Pacific region was revised up to 5.0% for 2026, from 4.9% in July. Singapore is not part of ADB's "developing Southeast Asia" classification and is excluded from this subregional forecast.

The gains were uneven. Vietnam recorded the sharpest upgrade, to 7.8% for 2026 from a prior 7.2%, on manufacturing expansion, foreign direct investment and infrastructure spending. Malaysia's forecast rose to 4.9% from 4.6% on the semiconductor cycle and data-centre construction, and Thailand's edged up to 2.0% from 1.8% on electronics exports and technology investment. Indonesia's outlook was unchanged at 5.2%. The Philippines was cut to 3.3% from 3.8% on weaker investment and softer consumption, and ADB also lowered its forecasts for Cambodia and Myanmar.

Southeast Asia Startup Funding Quadruples to $7.25 Billion in H1 2026 — But a Single Data-Centre Deal Drove 62% of It

A Kickstart Ventures report published September 24 found Southeast Asia startup funding reached $7.25 billion across 217 equity deals in the first half of 2026, the strongest half-year total since early 2022 and more than quadruple the $1.86 billion raised in H1 2025. The report attributed the surge overwhelmingly to a single transaction: Singapore-headquartered data-centre developer DayOne's $4.5 billion Series C financing, tied to AI and cloud infrastructure build-out, which alone made up 62% of the half-year total. Strip that one deal out and regional funding was roughly $2.75 billion — closer to the weak levels of the prior two years than the headline figure suggests.

The concentration ran deeper than DayOne alone: the five largest rounds captured 75.5% of total funding and the top 20 took 89%, leaving the remaining 196 deals to share roughly $800 million between them. Deal volume itself fell 5% year-on-year to its lowest count since 2018, even as deal value surged. Debt financing grew to $1.36 billion across 23 deals, about 15% of combined equity and debt. Geographically, Singapore captured $6.7 billion, or 92% of the regional total, with Vietnam ($340 million), Malaysia ($203 million), Thailand ($130 million), Indonesia ($104 million) and the Philippines ($80 million) trailing far behind.

Luno, Halogen Capital and Kenanga Investors Disclose Early Plans for UMYR, a Ringgit-Pegged Stablecoin for Tokenised Fund Settlement

At the Luno Institutional Digital Asset Conference (LIDAC) in Kuala Lumpur on September 24, three Securities Commission Malaysia-licensed entities — digital asset exchange Luno, and Capital Markets Services Licence holders Halogen Capital and Kenanga Investors — disclosed early-stage collaborative plans around UMYR, a proposed fully-reserved, ringgit-pegged stablecoin intended to serve as an on-chain settlement instrument for tokenised money-market fund transactions. Under the proposed structure, Luno would act as issuer, handling minting, burning and reserve management, while Halogen Capital and Kenanga Investors — as fund managers already operating tokenised funds and mandates — would accept UMYR for fund subscriptions and redemptions, enabling real-time delivery-versus-payment settlement in place of conventional settlement windows.

The announcement is explicit that this is an intent-stage arrangement, not a launch: the parties' own materials state it "does not itself constitute a commitment to launch UMYR or the initiative," with participation "subject to regulatory engagement and the execution of definitive agreements." The design is a closed, business-to-business loop restricted to whitelisted institutional participants, with no retail access, and reserves would be held 1:1 in ringgit in segregated onshore accounts with independent third-party attestations. Luno country manager Scarlett Chai, Halogen Capital founder and CEO Hann Liew, and Kenanga Investors CEO Datuk Wira Ismitz Matthew De Alwis all framed the collaboration as exploratory, with De Alwis specifically noting that "our fiduciary obligations remain unchanged" during the exploration phase.

Eyes on the Day Ahead

Nothing closes in the next 24-48 hours. Looking slightly further out: Thailand's SEC consultation on giving retail investors access to regulated overseas crypto derivatives through licensed intermediaries closes September 30, and MAS's consultation on legislative amendments to implement its stablecoin regulatory framework under the Payment Services Act runs through October 16 — worth watching alongside any follow-up detail on UMYR's regulatory engagement with Securities Commission Malaysia.