In today’s digital-first economy, the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region stands out as one of the most vibrant, diverse, and rapidly growing markets in the world. From e-commerce and digital subscriptions to SaaS and travel platforms, companies are increasingly seeing APAC as the frontier for their next phase of growth.

However, this ambition often runs into a critical operational hurdle: cross-border payments.

For merchants expanding across APAC, payments are no longer just a backend function — they’re a strategic enabler of scale, conversion, and customer experience. Yet, many businesses find themselves struggling with high transaction costs, regulatory complexity, and low success rates.

The APAC conundrum: One region, many markets

APAC is often treated as a single region, but in reality, it is a collection of highly heterogeneous markets, each with its own currency, language, regulations, payment preferences, and banking infrastructure.

Digital businesses in the region are growing rapidly and often look to expand into adjacent markets. A company that starts in Singapore may look to sell in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand within a year. A travel merchant serving Korean customers may want to tap into Japanese and Southeast Asian travellers.

But expansion at this pace creates a payments challenge that is both technical and regulatory in nature.

Why most transactions become “cross-border”

Unlike traditional multinational companies that establish a local presence in each country, most digital businesses operate with leaner setups. They may have an HQ in Singapore or Hong Kong, and serve other markets remotely via digital channels.

But without local entities in each market, transactions from consumers in Indonesia, Vietnam, or Malaysia are often processed via international acquiring, which classifies them as cross-border transactions.

This triggers multiple issues:

• Higher MDRs (Merchant Discount Rates) due to cross-border acquiring and foreign exchange conversions.
• Increased failure rates, as local payment methods or issuing banks are wary of non-local merchants.
• FX volatility, which makes revenue recognition harder and affects pricing strategy.
• Regulatory bottlenecks, especially around fund repatriation, tax compliance, and PCI/DSS certifications.

In short, what starts as a go-to-market strategy quickly becomes a financial and compliance puzzle.

Also Read: Growth-minded Singapore SMEs turn to fintech amid cost pressures: Airwallex survey

Navigating regulatory minefields

Each APAC country has its own framework for digital commerce, data localisation, and cross-border money movement. For instance:

• Indonesia and Vietnam have rules around onshore vs offshore acquiring and data storage.
• Thailand and Malaysia have specific requirements for fund repatriation and invoicing.
• India has complex tax and compliance laws like GST, TDS, and OPGSP guidelines for exporters.

Most merchants don’t have the legal or financial bandwidth to interpret and comply with each of these frameworks. It’s also not feasible for fast-growing companies to set up a local legal entity, get licensed, open local bank accounts, and negotiate with each acquiring bank — just to process payments efficiently in a new market.

The need for a regional payments strategy

To truly scale in APAC, merchants need to think beyond a local or even bi-lateral payment setup. They need a regional payments strategy — one that lets them:

• Accept local payment methods like QRIS in Indonesia, PayNow in Singapore, GCash in the Philippines, etc.
• Route transactions through domestic acquiring rails where possible to reduce MDRs and improve success rates.
• Manage multi-currency FX exposure and reconciliation.
• Stay compliant with local financial regulations without setting up local entities.

This is where the idea of payment orchestration is becoming mainstream. It’s no longer a niche capability – it’s foundational infrastructure. In recent years, orchestration tools have emerged to help businesses adapt quickly to local requirements while maintaining global control.

What is payment orchestration?

At its core, payment orchestration is a technology layer that abstracts the complexity of dealing with multiple acquirers, payment methods, currencies, and regulations. It gives merchants a single integration point through which they can access a full suite of payment services — while intelligently routing, optimising, and localising transactions in the background.

A good orchestration partner provides:

• Access to local and global acquirers across the region.
• Intelligent transaction routing, retry mechanisms, and fallback options to reduce failures.
• Regulatory shields, ensuring that merchants remain compliant with changing country-specific rules.
• FX optimisation, letting merchants settle in local or preferred currencies and minimise conversion losses.
• Data visibility and control, so merchants can track performance, identify issues, and make decisions faster.

Also Read: Mapping out Malaysia’s fintech regulatory landscape: A fintech founder’s guide

Put simply, orchestration doesn’t just solve for payments — it solves for scale. In my time at Juspay, I’ve seen firsthand how digital businesses leverage orchestration to go live faster, localise deeply, and improve conversion while staying compliant.

Real-world impact: How orchestration helps

Here are a few common scenarios:

Scenario one: A travel merchant based in Singapore wants to sell to Korean and Japanese consumers.

Without orchestration:

• Transactions are processed via a Singapore-based acquirer.
• Consumers face poor checkout experience without familiar local options.
• Transaction success rates drop, and MDRs are high (three to five per cent).

With orchestration:

• Checkout adapts to show local methods (e.g., Konbini in Japan, Tmoney in Korea).
• Transactions are routed via local acquiring rails.
• FX is handled automatically, and merchant settles in SGD or JPY.
• Compliance with local e-money and VAT laws is handled in the backend.

Scenario two: A SaaS company in India wants to sell across Southeast Asia.

Without orchestration:

• Multiple payment integrations are needed.
• Invoicing and tax compliance vary across each country.
• Refunds and chargebacks are hard to handle.

With orchestration:

• A unified interface offers coverage across SEA.
• Tax and invoicing compliance is automated via orchestration tools.
• Local and international cards, wallets, and UPI are supported with dynamic routing.

Final thoughts

Cross-border payments in APAC are inherently complex, but they don’t have to be a bottleneck for growth. With the right orchestration strategy, digital businesses can expand faster, reduce costs, stay compliant, and deliver better customer experiences.

The future of APAC commerce is borderless — and payments need to catch up.

If you’re building a business that wants to grow across APAC, it’s time to stop thinking of payments as a cost center. Instead, treat it as a strategic lever — one that, when orchestrated well, can unlock scale at speed.

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In 2026, the biggest cybersecurity threat to businesses is not always a hacker exploiting a technical vulnerability. It is an organisation that has lost track of who (or what) has access in the first place.

As companies accelerate cloud migration, automate workflows and deploy AI agents across operations, non-human identities (NHIs) such as APIs, service accounts, machine workloads and autonomous agents are now outnumbering employees in many digital environments. That shift is quietly rewriting the rules of cybersecurity practices.

“In environments dominated by non-human access, identity security shifts from managing user accounts to governing access based on purpose, behaviour and lifecycle,” said Darren Guccione, CEO and co-founder of Keeper Security, in an email interview with e27.

Instead of focusing solely on employee credentials, businesses now have to secure a growing population of machine identities that authenticate continuously, operate silently, and often remain active long after they are needed.

Traditional identity and access management (IAM) systems were designed for humans: people who log in, reset passwords and eventually leave the organisation. But NHIs behave differently, and many are created automatically.

According to Guccione, most organisations lose visibility at the point of creation. He explained that NHIs are frequently spun up through CI/CD pipelines, cloud orchestration platforms, SaaS integrations, and AI agents — often without passing through central IAM frameworks.

This means security teams may not even know how many service accounts or API keys exist, who owns them, or what level of privilege they hold. That blind spot becomes a direct entry point for attackers.

Also Read: SBI bets on Singapore to build Asia’s digital asset corridor

The hidden risk: NHIs do not get offboarded

Another major weakness in cybersecurity practices is that machine identities rarely go through proper lifecycle management.

“Unlike employees, NHIs are not typically offboarded,” Guccione said. Tokens, service accounts and API keys often persist even after a project ends, infrastructure changes or a tool is retired. This creates, he says, “a growing population of orphaned but still-privileged identities,” particularly in APAC enterprises undergoing rapid cloud migration.

From a cyber risk perspective, these orphaned identities are dangerous because attackers do not need to break in. They simply need to find the credentials that were never revoked. This means, in 2026, the most damaging breaches may not trigger obvious red flags. Guccione noted that the stealthiest NHI-related threats are those that “abuse legitimate access rather than exploiting vulnerabilities.”

One example is attackers hijacking CI/CD service accounts to tamper with build pipelines or inject malicious dependencies. Since these actions resemble routine development activity, they often bypass security alerts. Another tactic involves over-privileged cloud service accounts being used for slow, deliberate lateral movement.

“Attackers deliberately minimise observable indicators,” Guccione said, adding that they often access metadata services, storage or control planes gradually over weeks or months.

Because authentication succeeds legitimately, many cybersecurity tools fail to detect the intrusion. And long-lived API keys remain a major problem, particularly in SaaS-heavy environments common across APAC. Once compromised, they act as “durable backdoors.”

Also Read: In Southeast Asia, cybersecurity is booming but funding is not

Best cybersecurity practices to adopt in 2026

To protect against these evolving risks, organisations must modernise cybersecurity practices with a strong identity-first foundation. Guccione outlined three capabilities that matter most.

First is continuous discovery and classification of NHIs across cloud, DevOps, and SaaS environments. This should be supported by enterprise-grade identity governance and Privileged Access Management (PAM) to ensure a complete inventory of service accounts, machine credentials, and API keys, with clear ownership.

Second is behavioural monitoring. “Traditional access reviews show who has access, rather than how that access is explicitly used,” he said. Businesses need identity-centric analytics that establish a baseline of normal machine activity, enabling detection of unusual access paths, abnormal data transfers, or suspicious privilege escalation.

Third is automated enforcement. Modern secrets management and privileged access platforms automatically rotate credentials, reduce privileges, or revoke access once risk thresholds are crossed. In cloud-native environments, this can include isolating workloads or invalidating credentials in real time.

In short: detection and response must move at machine speed.

Across APAC, Guccione sees a major divide between regulated industries and fast-scaling sectors. However, he stressed that the gap is not awareness; it is execution.

Finance, telecoms, and critical infrastructure players generally have governance frameworks in place, but these are often “human-centric and slow to adapt” to cloud-native and AI-driven environments.

Also Read: In Southeast Asia, cybersecurity is booming but funding is not

Meanwhile, fast-scaling industries such as SaaS, e-commerce, and logistics excel in automation but often lack formal identity governance. Speed-to-market pressures lead to excessive privileges, shared credentials, and weak lifecycle controls.

For fast-moving companies, Guccione said “good enough” cybersecurity practices start with basic hygiene: centralised secrets management, eliminating hard-coded credentials, and assigning ownership to all machine identities.

For regulated sectors, “good enough” must go beyond compliance reporting into continuous monitoring that can detect misuse, not just satisfy audits.

A 2026 cybersecurity playbook for business leaders

For APAC executives building their cybersecurity roadmap, Guccione recommended five key priorities, starting with assuming the role of autonomous attackers. He warned leaders to design controls for continuous, adaptive, and machine-driven threats.

Second, businesses must inventory all identities — humans, workloads, APIs, and AI agents — because unmanaged identities pose unmanaged risk.

Third, least privilege must be enforced by default, especially for non-human access, and should be both purpose-bound and time-bound.

Fourth, leaders must monitor behaviour, not just access.

Finally, organisations must automate containment because manual response will not scale.

Lastly, as cybersecurity practices become a board-level concern, metrics matter. Guccione advised directors to track indicators of risk reduction rather than surface-level activity.

These include the ratio of managed to unmanaged NHIs, the percentage of machine identities using short-lived credentials, time-to-revoke compromised access and the number of high-privilege identities without clear ownership.

In 2026, identity security is no longer an IT checkbox. It is the foundation of digital trust — and a strategic layer that determines whether automation accelerates business growth or accelerates business risk.

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Southeast Asia’s digital economy is expanding at breakneck speed. From instant payments and superapps to cross-border e-commerce and digital identity, the region has leapfrogged legacy systems and embraced mobile-first innovation. Yet as digital adoption deepens, so too does exposure. Cyber threats are no longer a distant enterprise concern; they are embedded in everyday growth.

Across the region, a new generation of cybersecurity startups is rising to meet this moment. They are not merely selling tools but building the trust infrastructure that underpins fintech, Web3, smart buildings, telecom networks and cloud-native startups. From AI-driven threat detection and zero-trust architecture to digital identity verification and post-quantum cryptography, these companies are shaping how Southeast Asia secures its digital future.

Also Read: From fraud fighters to zero-trust builders: SEA’s cyber stars

This list spotlights 25 cybersecurity players strengthening the region’s resilience, protecting its data, platforms and increasingly, its economic ambitions.

1. Sixscape

2. Keychain

3. GuardRails

4. Sesame Lab

5. CyRadar

6. SendForensics

7. Appknox

8. SMPT

9. Ground Labs

10. Hackuity

11. Red Alpha Cybersecurity

12. Protos Labs

13. Eleos Labs

14. Aegis Technologies

15. Cyberaas

16. Privacy Ninja

17. Block Armour

18. Primary Guard

19. Accredify

20. CredoLab

21. eSignGlobal

22. AnySecura

23. SecIron

24. V-Key

25. Privy

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Many experienced leaders step into startup boards thinking governance should look like the Fortune 500 model they know well – quarterly meetings, thick board decks, multiple committees, and structured approval processes.

But for Independent Directors, this is the fastest way to lose credibility, slow the company down, and unintentionally harm the founder’s ability to execute.

Because here’s the reality:

Startups operate on speed, uncertainty, and rapid iteration. Traditional governance operates on process, predictability, and quarterly rhythm.

When Independent Directors impose MNC-style governance on a startup, they create drag – not direction.

If you want to add real value as an Independent Director, you need a different playbook.

What an effective independent director in a startup really does

Embrace lean governance — don’t over-engineer it

Startups need just enough governance to stay disciplined — not enough to become bureaucratic.

As an ID:

• Resist the urge to introduce multiple committees.
• Keep the board small and decision-oriented.
• Encourage faster cycles, not ritualised quarterly meetings.

Your job is to protect agility, not import processes from large institutions.

Prioritise judgment over procedure

Founders don’t need an auditor. They need a sounding board.

Great IDs in startups:

• Ask sharp strategic questions
• Stress-test assumptions
• Anticipate risks that founders may not see
• Help them make high-conviction decisions faster

But they do it without slowing the company down.

Also Read: The future of visual content in the startup ecosystem

Make yourself available — not just scheduled

Traditional boards meet four times a year. Startup boards often need input four times a month.

As an ID, responsiveness matters more than formality:

• Be available for rapid check-ins
• Support pivot discussions
• Help navigate investor tensions
• Step in quickly during crisis moments (cash, churn, product incidents)

Your speed becomes part of the company’s speed.

Focus on what truly needs board oversight

Startup boards should concentrate on:

• Cash burn and runway
• Fundraising
• Pivots and product-market fit
• Major hires and culture
• Strategic partnerships
• Regulatory exposures

Not on:

• Detailed operational approvals
• Committee-level reviews
• Heavy compliance cycles

Strong IDs keep founders focused on the strategic levers, not administrative distractions.

Also Read: The cold logic of the angel: Stop funding dreams, start funding plumbing

Support the founder, but don’t worship the founder

The best Independent Directors strike a balance between:

• Empowering the founder’s vision
• Providing challenge where needed
• Calling out blind spots
• Protecting the organisation from single-person dependency

You are there to provide judgment, stability, and stewardship — not to rubber-stamp decisions or enforce corporate-style control.

Bring startup empathy, not corporate ego

Many IDs come from large organisations where structure, hierarchy, and process are the norm.

But in startups:

• Decisions are messy
• Roles overlap
• People wear five hats
• Data is incomplete
• Speed often outruns structure

The ID who adds the most value is the one who adapts – not the one who insists the company adapt to them.

The bottom line for independent directors

If you want to be an effective, respected Independent Director in a startup, don’t be the person who tries to turn a fast-moving, resource-constrained company into a mini MNC.

Instead:

• Protect agility
• Provide strategic clarity
• Be available
• Focus on the fundamentals
• Enable — not obstruct — execution

Startup governance is a different sport. The rules, pace, and expectations are nothing like the Fortune 500.

Independent Directors who understand this become invaluable. Those who don’t quickly find themselves out of place.

This article was first published on The Boardroom Edge.

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For too long, boards in Asia have treated workforce matters as operational issues or HR concerns, rather than strategic risks. The pandemic, the digital revolution, and rapid geopolitical and supply chain shifts have made one fact unmistakably clear: talent is enterprise risk. Boards that fail to govern human capital effectively may face operational disruptions, strategic misalignment, and reputational damage, the same way they would fail if financial controls or cybersecurity were neglected.

As an independent director, I see talent strategy emerging as a core board responsibility. Boards must evolve from oversight of high-level HR policies to active guardianship of workforce resilience, skills, and culture.

The talent risk imperative in Asia

Asia’s talent landscape is changing faster than most boards realise:

• Skills shortages in AI, data science, cybersecurity, ESG, and regulatory compliance are acute across Singapore, Hong Kong, India, and emerging ASEAN markets.
• Generational shifts are reshaping workforce expectations; younger employees prioritise purpose, flexibility, and social responsibility.
• Automation and AI adoption threaten to displace traditional roles while creating new, often highly specialised positions.
• Employee attrition and engagement have a direct financial impact; disengaged or overworked teams lead to lower productivity, higher replacement costs, and weakened innovation.

Yet, many boards still rely on episodic reports or annual HR presentations to assess talent risks, leaving leadership blind to future workforce gaps.

Why boards must treat talent like financial risk

Human capital is increasingly measurable, quantifiable, and linked directly to enterprise value.

Consider:

• Companies with high engagement levels outperform peers by up to 22 per cent in profitability.
• Talent shortages can delay digital initiatives, jeopardise compliance, and slow market expansion.
• Poor succession planning at the C-suite level often translates into stock price volatility and reputational exposure.

Boards are expected to exercise the same rigour over workforce strategy as they do over budgets, M&A decisions, or cybersecurity oversight. People are not just operational assets; they are strategic levers.

Also Read: How to win the war for top talent in emerging Asia

A board framework for human capital oversight

Boards must build structured oversight into their governance process. Key elements include:

• Human capital metrics and dashboards

Boards should track:

• Talent pipeline health and succession readiness
• Employee engagement and retention metrics
• Skills gaps relative to future strategy
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion indicators
• Culture and misconduct metrics

These dashboards should be updated regularly and linked to strategic KPIs.

• CEO and executive accountability

Talent strategy should be linked to performance evaluations and executive compensation. This ensures leadership prioritises workforce resilience alongside financial performance.

• Scenario planning for workforce disruption

Boards should stress-test talent risks against:

• Rapid automation or AI adoption
• Regulatory changes
• Geopolitical shifts affecting labour mobility
• Competitive poaching or market volatility

• Culture oversight

Culture is no longer intangible. Boards should actively monitor alignment between organisational values, employee experience, and strategic priorities.

Integrating talent strategy into board conversations

Board discussions must evolve beyond HR presentations:

• Quarterly talent reviews: Not just “are we hiring enough?” but “do we have the skills we need for tomorrow?”
• Leadership pipeline checks: Which executives are ready to step up if disruption strikes?
• Skills heatmaps: Identify gaps in AI, data, cybersecurity, ESG, and emerging markets expertise.
• Retention and engagement assessment: High attrition signals potential operational and reputational risks.

A forward-looking board does not wait for crises to appear — it anticipates them.

Also Read: How to win the war for top talent in emerging Asia

Future-proofing boards and companies

The companies that thrive in the next decade will have boards that:

• View workforce as a strategic asset, not a cost centre
• Embed human capital into risk management frameworks
• Align CEO and executive incentives with talent outcomes
• Adopt metrics-driven, data-informed approaches to workforce planning
• Maintain agility to respond to automation, digital transformation, and demographic shifts

Boards that treat people as strategic risk will safeguard long-term enterprise value. Those who don’t risk stagnation, disruption, and lost competitive advantage.

The independent director’s mandate

For aspiring independent directors, expertise in talent strategy and workforce oversight is increasingly essential. Boards want directors who can:

• Ask the right questions about skills, pipeline, and culture
• Evaluate CEO and executive accountability for human capital outcomes
• Anticipate workforce trends that affect strategy, risk, and resilience
• Ensure the board actively participates in succession and capability planning

Boards that embrace this mindset will be prepared not just for financial performance, but for organisational resilience in a world where human capital is the most critical asset.

This article was first published on The Boardroom Edge.

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In the current era of rapid technological evolution, the “Intelligent Enterprise” is no longer a visionary concept but a baseline requirement for global competitiveness. Central to this transformation is the deployment of the AI Agent—autonomous entities capable of orchestrating complex business processes across disparate systems. However, as organizations rush to integrate these capabilities, a significant strategic error is emerging: the attempt to tether agentic AI to legacy productivity frameworks via MS Office plugins. From a systems architecture perspective, a truly scalable AI Agent strategy must prioritize data gravity and process integrity over the superficial convenience of a sidebar in MS Word or MS Excel. To achieve sustainable digital transformation, leadership must look beyond the desktop and toward a unified, cloud-native intelligence layer.

The fragmented ecosystem: Navigating the versioning trap of MS Office

For decades, the developer community has recognized a fundamental truth: developing and maintaining MS Office plugins is an exercise in managing chaos. Unlike modern, unified cloud platforms, the Office 365 ecosystem remains plagued by extreme fragmentation. While MS Copilot promises a glimpse into an integrated future, the reality on the ground is a patchwork of web-based, “New Outlook,” and legacy desktop installations. This “versioning hell” creates a fragile environment for AI Agent deployment. When business logic is embedded within a plugin, it becomes hostage to the local environment of the user. For an enterprise seeking to harmonize global operations, relying on a medium where a significant portion of the user base still operates on end-of-life legacy versions is not just a technical risk—it is a breach of operational excellence.

Also read: Why traditional SEO is dying in Singapore — and how AISEO pioneers are winning the next Blue Ocean

The tender paradox: Why rigid requirements drive out competence

A disturbing trend has emerged in the procurement phase of AI transformation: the “Universal Support” mandate. We frequently observe layman buyers issuing tender invitations that require vendors to guarantee plugin compatibility across every iteration of MS Office and Office 365 currently in use. This requirement acts as a filter for quality, but in reverse. A competent, high-maturity vendor understands the exponential cost and technical impossibility of maintaining stable AI Agent behavior across decades-old COM or VSTO architectures and modern JavaScript APIs. Consequently, the most capable partners often withdraw from the bidding process. This leaves the enterprise to choose between less experienced vendors who overpromise in the initial contract, unknowingly setting the stage for a systemic failure in software assurance and lifecycle management.

The economic friction of plugin maintenance and software assurance

The disconnect between a buyer’s expected maintenance cost and a vendor’s actual developer overhead is the primary reason MS Office plugins are typically abandoned within 24 months. The labor-intensive nature of debugging an AI Agent that fails only in a specific build of MS Excel 2019, for instance, far outweighs the typical “Software Assurance” fee structured in a standard SLA. As Microsoft pushes frequent updates to MS Copilot and its core SaaS offerings, the underlying hooks for third-party plugins often break without warning. For the vendor, the cost of continuous refactoring becomes a margin-killing endeavor; for the enterprise, the result is a “broken” AI experience that erodes user trust and stalls the broader digital roadmap.

Also read: AI agents and ERP: Why Singapore businesses must act now

Data silos and the lack of cross-functional context

Beyond the technical fragility of plugins, using MS Office as the primary base for an AI Agent strategy fails because it prioritizes “document-centric” data over “process-centric” data. A document in MS Word or a sheet in MS Excel is often a static output of a much larger business process that lives in your ERP or CRM. When an AI Agent is confined to a plugin, it lacks the deep, transactional context required to make high-value decisions. To move from simple automation to true agency, the AI must reside where the business logic lives—at the core of the enterprise data stack—not at the peripheral edge where information is merely formatted for presentation.

Security, governance, and the shadow AI risk

Security and compliance are the cornerstones of the state-of-art enterprise management system philosophy. Deploying AI through Office 365 plugins introduces a fragmented security perimeter. Each plugin represents a potential endpoint for data exfiltration and a complex challenge for Identity and Access Management (IAM). Managing the permissions of an AI Agent across thousands of individual desktop installations is an administrative nightmare that invites “Shadow AI” into the organization. A centralized AI strategy allows for a single point of governance, ensuring that data privacy and ethical AI guardrails are applied consistently across all business functions, rather than being managed on a per-plugin, per-user basis.

Performance bottlenecks and scalability constraints

Finally, the desktop environment is fundamentally unsuited for the heavy lifting required by modern AI Agent architectures. Plugins share resources with the host application; a complex reasoning task initiated in a plugin can lead to latency, application crashes, and a degraded user experience in MS Outlook or Excel. More importantly, this architecture does not scale. An enterprise-grade AI strategy requires a decoupled, microservices-based approach where the AI’s compute requirements are independent of the user’s local hardware or the stability of a specific office suite. Scale is achieved through cloud-native orchestration, not through adding more overhead to a word processor.

Also read: Why Singapore manufacturers must embrace MES for the future

Conclusion: Strategic alignment for the future-ready enterprise

To lead in the digital economy, organizations must stop viewing the AI Agent as a “feature” of their productivity software and start viewing it as a core component of their enterprise architecture. While MS Copilot provides valuable individual productivity gains, it is not a substitute for a robust, vendor-agnostic AI strategy. By avoiding the pitfalls of MS Office plugins—the versioning traps, the procurement fallacies, and the maintenance deficits—leadership can build a foundation that is resilient, secure, and truly intelligent. The path forward lies in centralizing intelligence at the heart of business processes, ensuring that your AI strategy drives value today and scales for the innovations of tomorrow.

Why we write this article

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Micro Small Medium Enterprise (MSME) plays a vital role in a nation’s economic resilience. In Indonesia, during the monetary crisis in 1997-1999, MSMEs saved the economic situation. According to Indonesia Statistic, although post-crisis, the number of MSMEs declined 7.43 per cent, but the contribution of GDP of MSMEs spiked to 52.24 per cent. On the other hand, the export value rose by around 76.48 per cent. At that time, MSME acted as a shock absorber while larger corporations collapsed. 

Fast forward to today, the total MSMEs in Indonesia are still dominating. ASEAN Investment Report 2021 stated that the number of MSMEs in Indonesia was around 65.45 million, the biggest number among other Southeast Asian countries. 

Source: ASEAN Investment Report 2021

At first glance this sounds like a success story, but the data raises more uncomfortable questions: does quantity still translate to economic growth? Or has the narrative of MSMEs become stagnant, only big numbers but with weak value creation?

When big numbers don’t mean real growth

The dominance of MSMEs is often celebrated as a sign of economic growth. However, most MSMEs in Indonesia remain informal, low in productivity, and highly vulnerable. Many operate without proper bookkeeping, business licenses, or access to formal financing. Indonesia’s Vice Minister of MSMEs, Helvi Moraza, stated that 69.5 per cent of MSMEs are unable to access financing, while 43.1 per cent of them actually require funding to scale up their business productivity.

Source: Accurate Blog Definition of NPL

At the same time, the Financial Services Authority (OJK) reported that MSME Non-Performing Loans (NPL) reached 4.02 per cent in 2024. Based on the credit quality classification above, category four reflects a concerning condition, where borrowers face serious difficulty in predicting repayment and recovery. This figure signals that MSME financing issues are not only about access, but also about sustainability.

Also Read: Why agritech is key to securing long-term food resilience in Indonesia

This situation is driven by multiple structural factors. Cited from Tempo, a joint study by the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth, Mercy Corps, and 60 Decibels identified three main challenges that hinder MSME growth in Indonesia.

• First is the limited capability to operate digital platforms, even when MSMEs are aware of their benefits.
• Second is restricted access to business development services.
• Third is low awareness and weak intention to utilise loans and other formal financial products.

Ironically, business-support platforms and services are already widely available, such as point-of-sale systems, EDC machines, accounting tools, advertising platforms, and digital payment systems. However, most of these services require subscription fees, which MSMEs often perceive as non-essential spending due to limited capital. At the same time, education and socialisation regarding the urgency of these tools remain weak. Government programs such as UMKM Go Digital do exist, but many of them are short-lived. Programs often run for only one to three years before being discontinued, leaving no long-term impact.

Another perspective comes from the National Law Development Agency, which argues that a concrete step to empower MSMEs lies in regulatory reform. Existing regulations need adjustment to reflect current economic and social realities.

This phenomenon resembles an iceberg. What is visible on the surface, large numbers of MSMEs, hides deeper structural problems underneath. Numbers alone mean little without real progress and effective approaches to unlock the actual potential of MSMEs.

Government support: Necessary but not sufficient

The Indonesian government has positioned MSMEs as a national priority. Banks are encouraged to channel financing through programs such as KUR, alongside digital onboarding initiatives, tax incentives, and simplified licensing via the Online Single Submission (OSS) system. These efforts aim to remove administrative and legal barriers. In practice, however, formalisation is often treated as a checkbox rather than a long-term process to upgrade MSMEs into sustainable businesses.

Most policies focus heavily on onboarding MSMEs into the formal system, while paying less attention to maintaining progress, upgrading capabilities, and evaluating outcomes based on clear performance indicators. In reality, MSMEs require continuous guidance to improve productivity, management capacity, and market positioning.

Also Read: Indonesia courts Nvidia and AWS as it eyes a bigger role in global chip supply chains

Without parallel support in productivity improvement, managerial skills, market access, and technology adoption, formalisation risks becoming symbolic rather than impactful.

Is formalisation the right lever?

Formalisation is often positioned as the key to unlocking MSME growth. Once registered, MSMEs are expected to gain access to financing, enter formal markets, and manage their businesses more professionally. Theoretically, this logic sounds legit. In practice, it is incomplete. Formalisation only works when it reduces friction, not when it creates additional burdens. For many MSMEs, formalisation feels intimidating, leading them to remain informal despite potential benefits.

A study by Dr. Shova Thapa Karki and Professor Mirela Xheneti from the University of Sussex found that business formalisation is influenced by whether entrepreneurship is driven by necessity or opportunity. Necessity-driven entrepreneurs are often shaped by structural constraints such as unemployment, poverty, and lack of alternatives, while opportunity-driven entrepreneurs pursue growth, independence, and long-term value creation.

This distinction closely reflects the Indonesian context. Most MSMEs operate primarily to meet basic needs rather than to scale their businesses. This is largely due to the dominance of micro-level enterprises. According to the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN), micro enterprises, both in the agriculture and non-agriculture sectors, account for 99 per cent of total business units. This creates a structural limitation on growth.

An article from The Conversation further highlights that despite their dominance in numbers, micro-level enterprises contribute relatively little to GDP. Their impact on broader economic development remains limited, as business motivation is often individual-driven rather than oriented toward collective or systemic growth.

So, is formalisation the right lever? The answer is conditional. Formalisation can act as a catalyst for access to capital and markets, but it must be supported by a sustainable system. Revising MSME empowerment regulations, strengthening local business communities, implementing continuous monitoring with clear KPIs, and reshaping the perception of financing as an enabler rather than a threat are critical steps. Without these measures, formalisation risks becoming an administrative exercise instead of a pathway toward sustainable MSME growth.

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Across Southeast Asia, I’ve seen how the narrative of innovation often revolves around billion-dollar valuations and high-velocity startups. Yet behind those headlines lies a quieter truth: most of the region’s real economic energy still comes from small and midsized enterprises. The manufacturers, logistics operators, and service providers that keep our cities running.

And it’s precisely these businesses that I see struggling to be heard.

Traditional credit systems still ask SMEs to fit narrow definitions of “bankable.” Venture funds, meanwhile, chase disruption but often overlook durability. Somewhere in between lies the real economy, asset-rich but liquidity-poor, growing but unseen.

The question isn’t whether these firms deserve capital. It’s whether today’s capital still knows how to listen.

From speed to structure

Over the past few years, I’ve watched funding in Southeast Asia grow more polarised. Late-stage deals have surged, but seed and early-stage funding have contracted sharply. The pattern suggests a market that values maturity over momentum, yet it also reveals how little structural support exists for SMEs that never fit the startup mould to begin with.

What these businesses need isn’t another “growth story.” They need financing that aligns with the rhythm of their operations, loans that move with inventory cycles, repayment terms that reflect market volatility, and investors who understand that resilience sometimes matters more than returns.

In my view, the real innovation isn’t speed. It’s in structure.

Also Read: Revisiting “Something Ventured”: What the birth of venture capital still teaches Founders today

The missing ingredient: Trust

Trust may be the least analysed variable in private capital, yet I believe it underpins every successful transaction.

In emerging markets, where data can be patchy and legal frameworks uneven, relationships still matter more than algorithms. Financing models that embed trust, through transparent governance, local presence, and shared accountability, often outperform those that rely solely on credit scores or valuations.

That doesn’t mean abandoning rigour. It means recognising that rigour itself can take different forms: a business owner’s track record, a community’s reputation, or an asset’s proven utility. In many cases, I’ve found that these informal signals of credibility are more predictive of repayment than any spreadsheet.

The capital that listens pays attention to those signals.

Designing for reality

I’ve come to view finance not just as a product, but as a design exercise. We need to prototype new structures, revenue-linked models, milestone-based repayment, or collateralisation through non-traditional assets that mirror how real businesses actually operate.

This is what I call governed capital: money deployed with both structure and empathy. Responsible lending isn’t about avoiding risk; it’s about understanding it. It’s about designing financial systems that reflect the lives and cycles of those they serve, rather than forcing businesses to contort themselves to qualify.

Beyond ESG: Building systems that endure

Much has been said about “impact investing,” but I’ve often seen the region treat it as an aesthetic, a badge of responsibility rather than a redesign of intent. Real impact investing must be slow capital: patient, cyclical, and local.

It should finance the middle of the market, the businesses that hire, train, and sustain, not only those that promise exponential growth. And it should measure success in systems built to endure market shocks, not in exits achieved before the cycle turns.

Also Read: Grants are not just for nonprofits: Why for-profit operators miss out on early-stage capital

That philosophy demands more than new metrics. It demands new mindsets from investors, regulators, and entrepreneurs alike.

What comes next

If Southeast Asia’s next decade is to be defined by capital that listens, I believe a few principles can guide the way forward:

• Local fluency over global templates. Effective capital requires proximity to markets, to culture, and to people.
• Governed flexibility. Rules and empathy are not opposites; they are co-designers of trust.
• Measured ambition. Growth that compounds slowly is often the kind that lasts.

When finance learns to operate at a human scale, SMEs cease to be an afterthought. They become the architecture of regional resilience, proof that in an age of noise, the most transformative capital may be the kind that moves quietly, listens deeply, and stays long enough to matter.

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Bitcoin faces a multi-day losing streak that analysts identify as the harshest reset since past major bear markets. The asset peaked above US$100,000 in October 2025 before falling roughly 50 per cent to the mid US$60,000s. A sharp flush to about US$60,000 on 5 February triggered heavy forced selling and extreme options demand for downside protection.

Volatility and derivatives stress levels are at levels last seen during the FTX era and the 2018-style resets. On-chain and valuation metrics have shifted into early bear-market territory. Sentiment sits near extreme fear, with the Fear & Greed Index at 6. This reading marks the second-lowest ever. Key support zones now focus around US$60,000 and roughly US$55,000. Investors watch ETF flows and whether on-chain composite indices recover or slide further toward full capitulation zones.

The streak reflects broad de-risking across spot, derivatives, and ETF flows after a very extended bull run. Analysts at K33 and Bitcoin Magazine describe capitulation-like conditions in volume, funding, and options skew as BTC approached US$60,000. Daily RSI sits near 16. US spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen around US$400 million in weekly net outflows.

A big drop in assets under management from a 2025 peak has removed an important source of incremental demand. This data suggests the market struggles to find buyers at current levels. The structure looks more like the early part of a bear phase than a brief correction. This implies longer, choppy sideways to down price action appears likely.

CryptoQuant’s Combined Market Index blends valuation, profitability, spending behaviour, and sentiment. This index dropped to around 0.2. Analysts linked this zone to the early stages of the 2018 and 2022 bear markets rather than a mid-cycle dip. A separate heatmap of 10 major on-chain metrics shows all key signals in the red band. These signals include trader profit margins and network activity. Conditions remain inconsistent with new highs in the short term.

Realised price tracks the average cost basis of all BTC. This metric currently stands at around US$55,000. Past cycle lows have often formed 24 to 30 per cent below it. This places a potential high-risk, high-reward zone around that area if history repeats. Analysts flag US$60,000 to US$62,000 as a critical support band. K33 work suggests consolidation between roughly US$60,000 and US$75,000 now forms the base case. Deeper downside awaits if US$60,000 fails.

Also Read: Crypto market bleeds US$44B as US$78M Bitcoin liquidations spark panic

Broader market context adds weight to this cautious outlook. Major US stock indices ended slightly higher on February 17, 2026. The session saw the S&P 500 swing between gains and losses as investors grappled with persistent fears regarding AI expenditures. The S&P 500 rose 0.1 per cent to close at 6,843.22. It found support near its 100-day moving average after an initial drop of nearly one per cent.

The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.14 per cent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 32.26 points to settle at 49,533.19. Financials and real estate each rose approximately 1.1 per cent. In contrast, the energy sector fell 1.4 per cent, and consumer staples dropped 1.5 per cent. General Mills sank seven per cent after cutting its annual outlook. The technology-heavy Nasdaq faced pressure from a 2.2 per cent drop in software-focused ETFs.

Commodities signalled risk-off behaviour. Gold prices plummeted more than two per cent. Prices fell below US$5,000 to settle at around US$4,884 per ounce. Oil prices dropped roughly two per cent to a two-week low. Brent crude settled at US$67.42 and WTI at US$62.33. Reports of a new window of opportunity for a potential nuclear deal reduced safe-haven demand for gold. This also lowered the risk premium on oil. AI anxiety triggered a bout of volatile trading.

Scepticism about tech giants’ ability to monetise their high AI expenditures worried investors. Dip buyers helped indices recover by the close. Liquidity remained thin following the US Presidents’ Day holiday and ongoing Lunar New Year closures in China and Hong Kong. The 10-year Treasury yield edged up slightly to 4.06 per cent. The 2-year yield rose to 3.439 per cent.

Also Read: Markets in freefall: AI fears trigger US$4B Bitcoin ETF exodus

My view synthesises these disjointed signals into a coherent narrative. The Bitcoin reset aligns with broader macro uncertainty. While stock indices closed slightly higher, the underlying volatility suggests fragility. The drop in gold alongside Bitcoin indicates a liquidation of safe havens rather than a rotation into risk. The US$400 million weekly ETF outflows confirm institutional hesitation. Investors need multiple consecutive days of strong inflows to reset the current bearish regime. The realised price near US$55,000 offers a logical floor, yet history suggests prices could dip 24 to 30 per cent below this level.

The BCMI at 0.2 reinforces the bear market comparison. Traders should focus less on picking an exact bottom. Focus remains on whether US$60,000 and the realised price hold. ETFs and on-chain signals must stabilise before optimism returns. The current environment demands patience as the market searches for a true bottom amidst economic crosscurrents.

AI scepticism in equities and crypto derivatives highlights shared sensitivity to liquidity conditions across asset classes. This parallel suggests that the crypto downturn is not isolated from traditional finance movements. Investors observe that doubts about technology expenditure in the stock market mirror the de-risking seen in Bitcoin derivatives.

Both markets react sharply to changes in yield expectations and risk appetite. The 10-year Treasury yield edged up to 4.06 per cent, adding pressure to valuation models for high-growth assets. Higher yields typically reduce the present value of future cash flows for tech firms and diminish the appeal of non-yielding assets like Bitcoin. This correlation strengthens the argument for a cautious approach until yields stabilise.

Nevertheless, the path forward involves navigating choppy sideways action until clear recovery signals emerge.

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The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has announced that SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 will take place from April 27 to April 29 at Tokyo Big Sight, positioning this year’s edition as its most ambitious yet. Now in its fourth year, the conference has grown into Asia’s largest global innovation gathering, and organisers are aiming to further elevate it as a worldwide platform where innovators converge to design the cities of tomorrow.

Short for “Sustainable High City Tech,” SusHi Tech Tokyo was conceived as a forum to envision, debate and implement future societies shaped by advanced technologies. Over the years, it has evolved into a comprehensive program of intensive sessions, live demonstrations and startup showcases. In 2026, the event will expand both in scale and global reach, welcoming participants from across industries and geographies to experience not only frontier technologies but also Tokyo’s unique cultural and urban strengths.

This year’s programme centres on four key areas: AI, Robotics, Resilience and Entertainment.

AI takes centre stage as a transformative force reshaping industries, work styles and the nature of innovation itself. Leaders from pioneering companies and renowned research institutions will explore how humans and AI can collaborate to build more inclusive and productive societies. The event will feature an AI-focused startup exhibition highlighting university and research spin-offs from across Japan, alongside a pitch contest and partner screenings of award-winning works from an international AI film festival.

Robotics will showcase the rise of “physical AI,” as intelligent machines become more deeply integrated into daily life. Demonstrations will spotlight robots performing a range of tasks designed to enhance convenience, productivity and quality of life, signalling how automation could address labour shortages and demographic shifts.

Also Read: The US$71000 Bitcoin bounce lacks foundation but Japan’s rally has real teeth

Under the resilience theme, SusHi Tech will present technologies to strengthen cities against natural disasters and climate-related risks. Exhibits will focus on earthquake preparedness, flood mitigation and rapid recovery systems.

Attendees can also join site tours of Tokyo’s critical infrastructure, including vast underground flood-control reservoirs that protect the metropolis from river overflows.

In entertainment, the event will explore how technology is reshaping creative industries spanning anime, manga, music and sports. Beyond the main venue, partner events across the city will invite global visitors to engage with Tokyo’s cultural landscape, including a walking event along the KK Line, an elevated expressway undergoing a transformation into a pedestrian space.

SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 is also set to attract a record number of startups. More than 700 companies from around the world will exhibit, up from 607 last year. The global pitch contest, SusHi Tech Challenge 2026, will see 20 finalists selected from 820 applicants across 60 countries and regions.

A new initiative, “SusHi Tech Global Startups,” will provide intensive support to growth-stage companies through collaboration between the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and ecosystem partners.

Global investors will take the stage to share insights into Japan’s startup landscape and evolving investment strategies, with open meetups designed to facilitate direct engagement.

The conference will also spotlight Japan’s top university startups, innovative SMEs from across the country and student-led initiatives such as “ITAMAE,” where students independently plan sessions and support overseas founders.

With tickets now on sale, including discounted early-bird passes until February 28, SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026 is shaping up not only to be a showcase of emerging technologies but also a statement of Tokyo’s ambition to lead in building sustainable, human-centric cities for the future.

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Image Credit: SusHi Tech 2026

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