KUALA LUMP/SINGAPORE: For an events industry that treats Kuala Lumpur as a stop on the regional circuit, the Responsible Fintech Institute (RFI) made a different call: its first flagship event outside Singapore would be held here, not there.
"Malaysia has long flown under the radar in regional fintech, and hosting this forum in Kuala Lumpur, with the backing of regional regulators and industry leaders, signals its coming of age. We built this agenda for practitioners, not the conference circuit. Malaysia brings critical pillars the regional dialogue needs: a mature Islamic finance ecosystem and proactive regulators willing to give digital models room to scale."
Farah Jaafar, Co-Chair of the organising committee, Independent Non-Executive Director of Webull Securities (Malaysia), and Co-Chair of the Women in Fintech group within the Asia Fintech Alliance.
The bet is on a timing gap. Malaysia is licensing a new generation of digital banks even as Asean member states negotiate the Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA), the regional rulebook meant to let those national systems talk to one another.
RFI's inaugural Asia Fintech Forum, a one-day summit at the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur on Friday, 2 October, has built its entire regulatory track around that gap, betting that the conversation belongs where the market is still being built rather than where the rules are already settled.
Registration opened today for the summit, which will bring together 40 speakers from regulators, banks and fintech firms across Asia and is expected to draw 1,000 delegates. Remi Technology, the Singapore-headquartered cross-border settlement provider, joins as title sponsor.
"Asia is writing the rules for digital finance faster than any other region, and it is writing them in several places at once: a stablecoin framework in Hong Kong, digital banking licences in Malaysia, payment corridors out of Singapore. The risk is not that innovation outpaces regulation.
"The risk is that a dozen regulators solve the same problem a dozen different ways, and the cost of that lands on consumers and on any firm trying to operate across borders. We chose Kuala Lumpur for our first forum because that conversation has to happen where the market is growing, not only where the rules are already written," said Chia Hock Lai, Chairman of RFI.
Confirmed speakers include Mohammad Ridzuan Abdul Aziz, Chief Executive Officer of Aeon Bank; Aaron Tang, General Manager of Luno Malaysia; Kenneth Chan, Chief Executive Officer of Webull Malaysia; Victoria Wymark of PwC South East Asia; and, from the Labuan Financial Services Authority, Affendi Rashdi, Director-General, and Ja'afar Rihan, Head of Islamic Business Development. The full speaker roster is published at asiafintech.org/#speakers.
Sessions across the day Asean fintech and DEFA, agentic AI in financial services, stablecoin clearing and cross-border settlement, Islamic fintech and digital banking, real-world asset tokenisation, post-quantum cryptography migration for banks, fintech branding and market communication, governance standards for permissionless blockchains in APAC (Project Pigeon), and digital banks and financial inclusion.
"Banks do not need another payment rail that routes around them. They need settlement infrastructure that runs inside their own compliance perimeter. That argument only gets properly tested in a room that has regulators and bank treasurers in it, not just builders.
"That is why we are title sponsor: this is one of the few forums in the region that puts all three on the same agenda on the same day," said Sam Su, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Remi Technology.
"Real-world asset tokenisation and next-generation capital markets cannot scale in silos; they require shared liquidity, robust custody, and cross-border regulatory clarity. As both strategic partner and venue sponsor, NexStox is proud to anchor this dialogue at the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur," added Calvin Ng, Chairman of NexStox.
Registration is now open at asiafintech.org. Exhibition packages and speaker nomination forms are available on the same site.
About Responsible Fintech Institute: The Responsible Fintech Institute (RFI) is a global nonprofit organisation based in Singapore. Its goal is to create a
safe, trustworthy, and reliable future for digital finance by building the digital utilities that support responsible innovation. RFI brings together public and private sector stakeholders to help build the rules and technology needed for new digital financial tools, and to make the digital asset sector sustainable and inclusive.
About Remi Technology: Remi Technology is a Singapore-based fintech company that delivers stablecoin clearing and settlement infrastructure for banks and financial institutions worldwide. Find us at www.remitech.ai or www.linkedin.com/company/remi-tech.
