CTOS IDGuard Has Flagged RM1.08 Billion of Credit Application Fraud Across 18 Million Screenings
CTOS Digital Berhad disclosed on May 25 that its industry-shared fraud bureau, CTOS IDGuard, has now screened more than 18 million credit applications since its September 2020 launch and flagged an estimated RM1.08 billion in suspected and confirmed application fraud — amounts intercepted before disbursement. In the twelve months to April 30, 2026 alone, IDGuard processed 4.3 million applications and flagged RM276 million of potential fraud, with the strongest alert rates on mortgages (3.35 percent), personal loans (1.91 percent), auto loans (1.87 percent) and cards (0.96 percent).
Group CEO Ankur Sehgal framed the result as evidence that fraud is becoming both more sophisticated and more institutionally contested: "IDGuard flagging more than RM1 billion potential application fraud reflects both the rising sophistication of fraud and the industry's growing commitment to proactive risk prevention." CTOS also surfaced consumer survey data showing 28 percent of Malaysians now rank fraud protection as their primary banking consideration and 33 percent cite money-transfer scams as their main financial crime concern — both numbers materially higher than a year ago.
Indonesia's Sovereign Wealth Fund INA Tilts Roughly a Third of Its US$4.2 Billion Deployed Capital Toward Digital Infrastructure
Bloomberg reported on May 26 that the Indonesia Investment Authority (INA) and its co-investors have so far deployed roughly Rp74.5 trillion (US$4.2 billion) of capital, with around 30 percent of that flowing into digital infrastructure. Chief investment officer Christopher Ganis singled out data centres and supporting digital infrastructure — including subsea cables — as a priority sector for the sovereign wealth fund. The disclosure formalises a tilt that has been visible in INA's project list for over a year: the joint venture with Singapore-based DayOne to build a 72 megawatt data centre campus at Nongsa Digital Park in Batam, financed in part by a US$411 million rupiah-denominated loan arranged by DBS and UOB in 2025.
INA manages around Rp163.4 trillion (US$10 billion) in assets and now sits alongside the much larger Danantara, the US$20 billion seed-funded super-holding launched in early 2025, as the second institutional anchor for state-aligned digital investment. Ganis has previously told w.media that INA is most interested in artificial intelligence "with practical use cases such as in healthcare" rather than frontier-model investing.
Binance Re-enters the Philippines via the SEC's Strategic Sandbox With Local Partner BlockShoals
Binance announced on May 26 that it has partnered with locally registered BlockShoals Technologies Inc. to operate inside the Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission's Strategic Sandbox (StratBox), which the SEC formally opened for crypto-asset intermediaries earlier this year. Under the structure, BlockShoals — approved as a Philippine crypto asset intermediary — is the locally accountable entity, while Binance contributes technology and security infrastructure. Live testing is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2026 and must run for at least two years under SEC guidelines before a full operating decision is made.
The arrangement is the cleanest path back into the market after Philippine authorities directed internet service providers, at the request of the National Telecommunications Commission, to block access to unregistered offshore exchanges including Coinbase and Gemini in 2025. Binance's APAC head Seker described the StratBox framework as "an important step in enabling responsible innovation," while BlockShoals characterised the partnership as evidence that global platforms and local frameworks "can work together constructively."
Eyes on the Day Ahead
Watch Malaysia's central bank ahead of Bank Negara's MPC review next week and the ongoing tokenised-deposit pilots involving Maybank, CIMB and Standard Chartered (the Yinson live test in March remains the most concrete cross-border atomic-settlement proof point so far). In Indonesia, expect further follow-up on the INA and Danantara digital-infrastructure roadmap, including any new co-investor disclosures. In the Philippines, the SEC's next StratBox cohort and the BSP's June 30, 2026 deadline requiring banks to deploy automated fraud-management systems under the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act are the two near-term catalysts worth tracking.
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.
