Inaugural forum from Singapore's Responsible Fintech Institute, title-sponsored by Remi Technology, puts AI, stablecoins and financial inclusion on a single agenda
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia and SINGAPORE, Sept. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Responsible Fintech Institute (RFI) today opened registration for the inaugural Asia Fintech Forum 2026, a one-day summit on Friday, 2 October at the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur.
The forum 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.
Convening under the theme "Architecting Asia's Financial Frontier: AI, Digital Assets, and Inclusive Banking," the forum is RFI's first flagship event outside Singapore. The choice of Kuala Lumpur is deliberate: Malaysia is licensing a new generation of digital banks while ASEAN member states negotiate the Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA), and the forum's regulatory track is built around that gap between national rulemaking and regional interoperability.
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 Affendi Rashdi, Director-General, and Ja'afar Rihan, Head of Islamic Business Development at Labuan Financial Services Authority. The full roster of the speakers is published at https://asiafintech.org/#speakers.
"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," said Chia Hock Lai, Chairman of RFI. "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."
Main-stage sessions, hands-on workshops, and closed-door roundtables span:
- ASEAN fintech and the Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA)
- Agentic AI in financial services
- Stablecoin clearing, settlement and cross-border payments
- Islamic fintech and digital banking
- Real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation and its legal frameworks
- Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) migration and defense strategies for banks
- Strategic fintech branding, positioning, and market communication
- Governance standards and institutional frameworks for permissionless blockchains in APAC (Project Pigeon)
- 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," said Sam Su, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Remi Technology. "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."
"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," said 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. "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."
"Real-world asset tokenisation and next-generation capital markets cannot scale in silos; they require shared liquidity, robust custody, and cross-border regulatory clarity," said Calvin Ng, Chairman of NexStox. "As both strategic partner and venue sponsor, NexStox is proud to anchor this dialogue at the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur. The Asia Fintech Forum provides the institutional bridge APAC needs to transition tokenised assets and digital market infrastructure from pilot concepts into live capital deployment."
NexStox, RegTank, Sumsub and VerifyVASP join as sponsors.
Supporting partners include the Labuan Financial Services Authority (LFSA), International Digital Economics Association (IDEA), the Digital Assets Association (DAA), Thailand Fintech Association (TFA), Fintech Philippines Association (FPA), Hong Kong Fintech Industry Association (HKFTA), Unified Fintech Forum (India), ACCESS Malaysia, Fintech Association of Malaysia (FAOM) and Taiwan Fintech Space.
Registration is now open at https://asiafintech.org/. Exhibition packages and speaker nomination forms are available on the same site.
Media accreditation: Journalists may request onsite access, interview slots with RFI and sponsor spokespeople, and the full press kit (logos, speaker headshots, agenda) from the contact below.
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. Learn more at responsiblefintech.org.
About Remi Technology
Remi Technology is a Singapore-based fintech company that delivers stablecoin clearing and settlement infrastructures for banks and financial institutions worldwide. Find us at www.remitech.ai or www.linkedin.com/company/remi-tech.
View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/asia-fintech-forum-2026-to-convene-regulators-bankers-and-fintech-leaders-in-kuala-lumpur-on-2-october-302870789.html
SOURCE Responsible Fintech Institute (RFI)
