Asian Legal Review

Indonesia has blocked predictions market ⁠Polymarket as part of its crackdown on online gambling, its communications and digital ministry said, days after the site took bets on a premature end to Prabowo Subianto’s presidency.
Gambling is illegal in Indonesia and authorities have been clamping down on online betting.
“The government will not allow any form of online gambling in Indonesia,” the ministry said in a statement.
Ministry official Alexander Sabar late on Friday said Polymarket was…

Malaysian police have arrested 51 men in a drug raid at a luxury Kuala Lumpur hotel, describing the scene as a “gay party” with “immoral activities” committed.
The language has drawn scrutiny from lawyers and rights advocates who say the terms risked prejudicing suspects and stigmatising LGBTQ people.
Bukit Aman narcotics chief Hussein Omar Khan said four raids were carried out between 2.35am and 5am on Sunday after police received intelligence about what they described as a “drug party” and…

Cambodia’s acting head of state, former prime minister Hun Sen, pardoned opposition leader Kem Sokha on Monday from a sentence of almost three decades for treason.
Kem Sokha, who was convicted of trying to topple the former long-ruling leader’s government and sentenced to 27 years, “is pardoned”, Hun Sen posted on social media alongside a royal decree signed by him.
Hun Sen, who ruled Cambodia for nearly four decades, stepped down as prime minister in 2023 and handed power to his eldest son, Hun…

A new US immigration policy could force many green card applicants to leave the country and apply from abroad, disrupting families, careers and long-term settlement plans for Asian workers already facing years-long backlogs for visas.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services said on May 22 that it would only grant “adjustment of status” – the process that allows prospective immigrants already in the US to apply for permanent residence without leaving the country – in “extraordinary…

A blast targeting a train carrying military personnel killed at least 24 people on Sunday in Pakistan’s turbulent southwestern province of Balochistan, a senior official said.
Army servicemen and their relatives were among the victims of the attack in the provincial capital Quetta, with over 50 people wounded, the official told AFP.
The attack, claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) militant group, was branded a “cowardly” act of terrorism by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Images…

A nine-storey building under construction in a city north of the Philippine capital collapsed before dawn on Sunday, leaving at least one Malaysian tourist dead and at least 21 people, mostly workers, trapped in the rubble, officials said.
Two were located alive but could not be immediately extricated.
At least 24 workers either managed to dash out of the building, where they mostly slept on the ground floor, or were rescued after it crumbled to the ground around 2:30am in a crowded…

Thailand’s PromptPay digital payment system — one of Southeast Asia’s most successful financial infrastructure projects — could serve as a blueprint for modernising the global trade finance sector, according to Rahul Bhargava, a senior financial sector advisor at the World Bank and interim chief operating officer of Contour Network.

Bhargava made the case at Money20/20 Asia 2026 in Bangkok, arguing that while consumer payments in Southeast Asia have advanced rapidly, the trade finance industry remains mired in inefficiency. The sector continues to rely heavily on paper-based letters of credit, manual bank confirmations via phone and email, and disconnected systems that force banks, buyers, sellers, and logistics firms to coordinate across siloes.

Trade Finance’s Chronic Bottlenecks

A critical problem, Bhargava explained, is the lack of true data integration. When payment terms are altered through informal channels such as email or WhatsApp but primary documents are not updated, disputes and operational errors follow. Trade documents frequently sit in separate systems with no automatic reconciliation, leading to delays that cost businesses time and money.

In contrast, modern payment platforms like PromptPay can send settlement confirmations almost instantly, notifying recipients within seconds that funds have arrived. Yet in trade finance, organisations still depend on manual confirmations from banks — a stark contrast in speed and reliability.

PromptPay: A Dual Approach That Works

PromptPay’s success, launched in 2016, stems from what Bhargava called a powerful synergy of top-down and bottom-up forces. The Bank of Thailand set clear roadmaps, established common standards for digital payments, and created regulatory sandboxes for innovation trials. Meanwhile, banks, payment providers, and citizens embraced the technology, transforming daily transaction volumes from hundreds of thousands at launch to over 81 million today.

The system allows users to transfer money using citizen IDs, mobile phone numbers, or bank account numbers with minimal fees. Transfers are free under THB 5,000 (US$153), with larger transactions charged nominal fees of THB 2 to THB 10. PromptPay is also used for government social welfare disbursements, tax reimbursements, B2B payments, and electronic donations.

Cross-Border Expansion Underway

The Bank of Thailand is actively connecting PromptPay with similar systems across the region, including Malaysia’s DuitNow and Singapore’s PayNow, enabling seamless cross-border transactions. QR code payment connectivity has also been extended to Hong Kong and Laos.

Data compiled by the Emerging Payments Association Asia shows dramatic shifts in Thailand: account-to-account transactions accounted for 41% of all point-of-sale payment value in 2024, surpassing cash at 31%, giving cashless payments a total 66% share. Digital banking accounts reached 181.8 million in January 2026, with transaction volumes up 10.6% year-on-year.

Implications for Global Trade

Bhargava’s proposal is that the global trade sector could replicate PromptPay’s regulatory-technology partnership model. The Contour Network, which operates a blockchain-enabled platform for digitising letters of credit since 2017, has been exploring how to integrate trade digitalisation with payments and settlement within a unified ecosystem. If successful, the model could dramatically reduce trade processing times and costs across Southeast Asia and beyond.

For ASEAN regulators and financial institutions, the story offers a compelling case study: state-backed standard-setting, combined with private-sector adoption and a permissive regulatory environment, can produce payment infrastructure that scales to hundreds of millions in daily transactions — and the next frontier may be transforming the multi-trillion-dollar trade finance industry.

Read the full story: https://fintechnews.sg/131823/thailand/promptpay-as-a-blueprint-to-modernize-trade-finance-and-infrastructure/

India’s state-run refiners raised retail prices again of diesel and petrol on Saturday to help processors cut losses on discounted sales and to control a spike in demand.
Prices of both fuels rose by nearly one per cent, or less than 1 rupee, with petrol now sold at 99.51 rupees (US$1.0399) and diesel at 92.49 rupees per litre in New Delhi, according to the website of Indian Oil Corporation, the country’s largest fuel retailer. Prices vary across India due to local taxes.
Smaller peers Bharat…

Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio has twice in recent weeks urged the country’s armed forces to defend its sovereignty, in a carefully calibrated attempt to sound more assertive on the South China Sea issue without directly challenging Beijing, according to analysts.
While Duterte-Carpio did not name China, her repeated calls marked a tonal shift from her earlier approach, when she either avoided the issue or warned against letting it define Manila’s broader relationship with…

The Indonesian government announced Thursday that the upstream oil and gas sector will be exempted from the controversial single-gate export centralization policy, a significant reversal that underscores the political economy’s sensitivity in a capital-intensive industry reliant on foreign investment.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia told delegates at the 2026 Indonesian Petroleum Association Convention and Exhibition in BSD City that the regulation under PP No. 21/2026 will not apply to upstream oil and gas operations. “I bring a special message from the President: the regulation does not apply to the upstream oil and gas sector. So, there is no need to worry, it’s business as usual,” he said.

Under a separate concession, Bahlil also confirmed that oil and gas exporters face different deposit rules than other exporters. Forex retention in the sector will be capped at 10 to 30 percent, reflecting heavy reliance on foreign financing.

The exemptions come days after President Prabowo announced on May 20 that key commodity exports — crude palm oil, coal, and ferroalloys — would be channeled through a single state-owned enterprise, PT Danantara Sumberdaya Indonesia (DSI). The government aims to prevent under-invoicing and transfer pricing fraud, which officials said could be costing the state up to US$150 billion annually.

During a June-to-September trial phase, exporting firms will still conduct direct transactions with buyers, but DSI handles export filing. From January 2027, DSI takes full control of export contracts, shipments, and payments. A later phase will expand the list to all strategic natural resource commodities.

The policy has drawn business pushback. The Indonesian Coal Mining Association warned that existing contracts, permits, and shipping schedules complicate any abrupt shift, while industry groups fear a de facto monopoly that could undermine buyer confidence across ASEAN markets.

Coordinating Economy Minister Airlangga Hartarto confirmed the revised regulation allows exporters to place part of their proceeds outside the Himbara banking consortium. The government also halved the currency conversion limit for FTA trading partners from 100 percent to 50 percent.

For ASEAN, Indonesia’s unilateral trade policy marks a significant shift in how Southeast Asia’s largest economy manages commodity export flows. Analysts warn it could trigger regional pushback and complicate Jakarta’s standing in ASEAN economic cooperation frameworks.