Dear EPAA Community,

A year defined by collaboration, thought leadership, and tangible progress across the APAC payments ecosystem

As 2025 draws to a close, EPAA reflects on a year in which our community once again demonstrated the power of clarity, connection, and collective intelligence. Across more than 100 engagements - from virtual forums to in-person roundtables, policy briefings, specialist workshops, and global conferences - we brought the right people together to solve industry-wide challenges and shape the future of payments.

Our reach this year extended far beyond APAC. EPAA engaged at Money20/20 Las Vegas and Riyadh and contributed to global conversations at SIBOS Frankfurt. Through our work with BIS, CPMI, FATF, and our participation in the LRS and PIE Taskforces, we ensured APAC perspectives influenced the global conversations defining what comes next for payments.

Across the region, EPAA’s presence has remained strong – from Singapore and Hong Kong to Sydney, Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur. We brought the community together through roundtables and workshops covering a wide variety of topics, all fueled by the work of our Working Groups.

Our Working Groups sit at the heart of our impact – they are the engines of shared intelligence across our community, driving insight, collaboration and action.

Preparing for 2026 – Five Strategic Streams

We are now preparing for what is to come in 2026, inviting members to contribute to five major strategic streams. Each is designed to build shared understanding, create common taxonomies, and reduce complexity across the ecosystem:

In 2026, our Working Groups – spanning Fraud and Scams in Payments, Quantum-Safe Cryptography, the Concorde Initiative, Tokenised Money, and Global Digital Commerce & SME Access – will continue driving shared understanding, common taxonomies, and ecosystem-wide clarity across APAC.

These Working Groups are not merely forums - they are EPAA’s commitment in action. They demonstrate our belief that when complexity clouds the conversation, EPAA provides the clarity, structure, and direction our ecosystem needs.

Introducing EPAA Connect – Our Flagship Payments Leadership Forum

In 2026, we bring all of this together with EPAA Connect. Our new flagship Payments Leadership Forum will unite C-suite leaders, regulators, innovators, banks, and fintechs in one high-trust environment to test emerging ideas, validate priorities, and align collective action. Designed in the signature EPAA style, it is where insight becomes influence - and where our community sets the direction for the next decade of payments in APAC.

Thank You

To our members, partners, and industry friends - thank you for your energy, your insight, and your belief in our mission. Together, we are shaping what comes next. And in 2026, with EPAA Connect at the centre, we will turn shared ambition into decisive industry action.

Camilla Bullock

Chief Executive Officer & Co-founder,

Emerging Payments Association Asia

Get in touch! Email or connect with me on LinkedIn!

IN THIS ISSUE:

AwardsSection2025

The energy from the 2025 APAC Payments Excellence Awards Gala Evening still resonates. Held at the iconic Pier 1929 in Hong Kong, the night brought together leaders from across the payments ecosystem for an unforgettable celebration of innovation, collaboration, and excellence.

We were proud to honour 12 outstanding winners whose groundbreaking contributions are shaping the future of payments across Asia Pacific.

View the full list of Winners and their Winning Innovations Here

View Full Gallery from 2025 Cocktail Evening Here

Be part of APAC’s premier payments awards program and gain industry recognition!

Join the Awards

Email Now

2026 Working Groups Showcase - Member Executive Briefing

Member Exclusive Meeting

January 21

The Year Ahead

Hot Topic Briefing

Webinar

February 5

Email Now

APAC Policy Outlook with Flint Global - Member Executive Briefing

Member Exclusive Meeting

February 25

Be Part of the Action! EPAA’s upcoming events are your gateway to industry collaboration, innovation, and leadership. Connect with experts & tackle key challenges!

Secure a Spot

What does Real-Time Payments Mean in your Part of the World?

Real-time payments (RTP) are rapidly reshaping the global financial landscape, but as this new EPAA analysis highlights, not all RTP systems are created equal. From governance models and settlement speeds to user features and cross-border interoperability, the RTP experience varies significantly across regions - especially as APAC continues to set global benchmarks in innovation, identity-linked rails, QR interoperability, and micro-transaction economics. With RTP now indispensable to modern economies, the next frontier is clear: achieving seamless, secure, and collaborative interoperability across borders. Click here to read the full article.

EPAAProjectInsights

EPAA Projects Update – Driving Payments Forward

At EPAA, we’re not just convening the APAC payments industry – we’re building momentum with a coalition of passionate payments professionals who share one mission: making payments better for everyone.

EPAA’s Working Groups are central to this mission. They are a core pillar of our strategy, enabling members to collectively shape the region’s payments priorities through structured, mission-driven collaboration. By convening experts from across the ecosystem, these groups transform fragmented challenges into coordinated action. They ensure EPAA remains not just a convener, but an engine for practical progress that reflects the evolving needs and perspectives of our member community.

Join the Member Executive Briefing on 21 Jan 2026 to learn more.

EPAA 2026 Working Groups

Quantum Safe Cryptography: Preparing the ecosystem for the quantum era by accelerating readiness and guiding members toward quantum-safe standards.

The Concorde Project: Bringing transparency to remittance costs and streamlining global payments to make cross-border transfers faster, cheaper, and fairer.

Fraud and Scams in Payments: Harmonising definitions, data models, and cross-border cooperation to reduce one of the region’s fastest-growing threats.

Stablecoins: Building an evidence-based, trusted framework to clarify risks, benefits, and governance for stablecoin use across APAC.

Meet-Her She Knows Payments: Showcasing world-class female expertise to challenge assumptions, elevate innovation, and include critical perspectives in shaping the industry’s future.

Global Digital Commerce & SME Access: Reducing fragmentation and enabling SMEs to thrive in international trade through interoperable policy and smarter digital frameworks.

Market Intelligence & Access: Enabling members to share region-specific insights, regulatory developments, and market dynamics to deepen collective understanding and support informed, strategic decision-making across Asia–Pacific.

Why it matters: These groups will shape the next wave of payments innovation and policy in APAC.

And the effectiveness of this model is already clear.

“Through EPAA’s working group on quantum safe, we’ve significantly increased awareness of the quantum risk across financial services enterprises in APAC, building global momentum and real impact - something we could not have achieved on our own in such a trusted, collaborative environment.” Ray Harishankar, IBM - Founding Working Group Member

The Quantum-Safe Cryptography Working Group illustrates how EPAA collaboration delivers tangible, measurable outcomes - producing a widely cited industry white paper, running multi-market workshops across the region, and influencing industry and media dialogue on quantum readiness. Its success highlights how working groups transform insight into action, demonstrating the value of member participation in driving the region’s readiness, resilience, and innovation.

EPAA members are welcome to be involved in all of our working groups – contact EPAA GM Danelle Denny for more information.

Your voice matters! Join EPAA’s policy and advocacy initiatives to drive industry change, influence regulations, and unify the payments agenda.

Expression of Interest

ISO 20022 Made Simple: Clarity in a Complex Payments Transformation

Across the Asia-Pacific region, the payments landscape is evolving at a remarkable pace. From instant payment systems in Singapore and Thailand, to cross-border QR code initiatives in ASEAN, innovation is reshaping the way value moves. Amid this rapid progress, one global shift stands out for its potential to unify and elevate payments worldwide: ISO 20022.

ISO 20022 is more than just a technical standard — it is the new universal language for financial messaging. By standardising and enriching the way payment data is structured, it enables faster processing, better interoperability, and richer data for compliance and analytics. For APAC, this opens doors to new efficiencies in trade, treasury, and cross-border transactions, particularly in a region known for its fragmented markets and diverse infrastructures.

But while the opportunity is clear, the path is not always straightforward. Adoption timelines vary, local market priorities differ, and technical complexities can be daunting. That is why ISO 20022 Made Simple, a new six-episode podcast series from Standard Chartered’s Corporate & Investment Bank, was created — to decode the complexities and focus on the practical realities of migration.

In this episode, EPAA CEO Camilia Bullock also shares some key insights on the transformative payment landscape in APAC and emphasised the region's pioneering role and the enabling power of ISO 20022.

Tune into Episode 4 – ISO 20022 Global Standard, Regional Realities to explore how one global standard meets the diverse payment realities of APAC and beyond.

Links:

Youtube

Spotify

Podcast

Money20/20 Malaysia Summit

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

External Conference

December 11

Money20/20 Asia

Philippines Summit

Manila, Philippines

External Conference

January 22

More Details Coming

Money20/20 Thailand Summit

Bangkok Thailand

External Conference

February 26

GFTN Forum Japan 2026

Japan

External Conference

February 24-27

Industry Pass: US $600

Discovery Passs: US $300

Black Swan Summit 2026

Perth, Australia

External Conference

March 23-25

Money2020 Asia 2026

Bangkok, Thailand

External Conference

April 21-23

Point Zero Forum 2026

Zurich, Switzerland

External Conference

June 23-25

intersekt 2026

Melbourne, Australia

External Conference

September 3-4

Sibos Miami

Miami, USA

External Conference

September 28-Octobe 1

Singapore Fintech Festival

Singapore

External Conference

Nov 18-20

This is your chance to speak alongside Silverlake Axis, Bolttech, Boost Bank, Fuse (GCash), and J.P. Morgan. Raise your profile as an industry leader. Apply to be a speaker at Money20/20 Asia today!

Apply now: https://tinyurl.com/y7vbwh9e

MemberNews2025

APAC Policy Outlook with Flint Global - Member Executive Briefing

Money20/20 Malaysia Summit

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