Welcome back to Continuum Weekly News
Every Friday we pull the top Asia headlines on digital-asset regulation, cyber risk, industry moves and insurance signals, with concise takeaways and practical actions for insurers and corporate risk teams.
1) Regulatory
• Thailand / expanded digital-asset framework announced — Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing new rules this year to formally enable crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs), regulated futures trading, and tokenized investment productsunder a unified framework. This marks a shift toward integrating digital assets into regulated financial markets with clearer custody and oversight expectations — a development financial institutions and insurers should track as it impacts counterparty frameworks and product eligibility in APAC.
• Hong Kong / new cybersecurity law expands incident reporting and penalties — Hong Kong’s Legislative Council passed its first cybersecurity law for critical infrastructure, effective January 2026, which will mandate mandatory incident reporting and introduce criminal penalties — elevating compliance risk for digital-asset firms and platforms operating in the jurisdiction.
2) Hacking & Physical Risks
• Malaysia energy firm hit by ransomware leak — A Dire Wolf ransomware group published data from Perdana Petroleum Berhad, a Malaysian oil-and-gas support company, highlighting that ransomware continues to penetrate critical infrastructure service providers in APAC.
• Cyber risk remains top commercial threat across Asia Pacific — The 2026 Allianz Risk Barometer reinforces that cyber incidents rank as the number-one business risk globally and in APAC, ahead of other operational and strategic threats — reflecting intense pressure on incident response and risk mitigation frameworks.
3) Industry & Markets
• Vietnam opens pilot crypto-asset licensing — Vietnam has launched a pilot licensing programme for crypto-asset market service providers, marking a shift toward regulated digital-asset markets and formal oversight for exchanges and broker-dealers.
• Asia-Pacific investors pivot on AI adoption and governance — APAC sovereign investors are transitioning from cautious observation to active deployment of AI across portfolios and operations, underlining the increasing importance of AI governance as both a strategic tool and a regulatory focus.
4) Insurance Spotlight
• APAC insurers face layered risk pressures — According to an APAC insurance outlook, insurers in the region continue to navigate combined pressures from geopolitics, natural catastrophes and AI-related exposures — a complex environment that will test underwriting, capital management and specialist lines like cyber and political risk.
• Cyber insurance demand tied to evolving threat profile — As cyber incident risk remains elevated and AI-generated attack vectors grow, APAC insurers are recalibrating offerings, creating both capacity and scrutiny around control evidence, risk governance and incident response readiness.
