Banking is under threat.

Much like navigating a new hike trail, this issue of Banking Insight shows readers the uncertainties of the path ahead and what it will take to prepare for the journey.

Each story tackles head on an emerging risk, explores its dimensions, and lights a way forward.

Southeast Asia’s Scam States: Fire in the Belly to Wrest This Beast, our exclusive cover story by Angela SP Yap is part exposé about the financing of proliferation of transnational criminal organisations in Southeast Asia and recent crackdowns by financial authorities in the US, UK, and Asia. It is also an expansion of the serious discussions held during the Institute’s 15th International Conference on Financial Crime and Counter Terrorism Financing (IFCTF) on The Future is Now: Tech-driven Compliance in the Fight Against Financial Crime.

From left: Abd Rahman Abu Bakar, Assistant Governor, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM); Mak Joon Nien, Managing Director and CEO, Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Berhad; Dato’ Marzunisham Omar, Deputy Governor, BNM; Tan Sri Azman Hashim, FCB, Chairman, AICB; Dato’ Sri Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour, FCB, Governor, BNM; Faradina Ghouse, CB, Chairman, AICB’s Compliance Officers’ Networking Group and Group Chief Compliance Officer, AmBank Group; Affendi Rashdi, Director General of Labuan Financial Services Authority; Dato’ Sri Khairussaleh Ramli, FCB, Chairman of the Association of Banks Malaysia and Group President and Chief Executive Officer of Maybank; T. Raja Kumar, Immediate Past President, Financial Action Task Force, 2022–2024 and Senior Advisor (International), Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore, 2021–2024; Edward Ling, CEO AICB.

Our exclusive interview, ‘We Are Witnessing a Catastrophic Plunge into Kleptocracy’, with economist Yanis Varoufakis, who served as the ex-finance minister for Greece at the height of the Greek Debt Crisis, exemplifies why he continues to be a strident voice in international economic discourse, including his panel discussion during MyFintech Week 2025 in Kuala Lumpur recently. He puts it plain the disruption of blockchain-based BRICS tokens, ASEAN’s risk and dependence on US trade and currency, and why he is now advocating towards the creation of a monetary commons for greater equity and equality.

Voices calling for the deregulation of banking are growing louder. In Deregulation: Resist the Race to the Bottom, we take the position that financial institutions must hold the fort because if there’s a lesson to be learnt from past forays on the matter, it is that we’ve not yet learnt the lesson.

SymphonyAI’s Jason Shane takes to task the ‘trap of extremes’ in the way companies integrate artificial intelligence into current workflows. He writes on how we should be Redefining Compliance Excellence: The 50/50 Model as Malaysia’s Path to Proactive Financial Crime Prevention.

Staving off a potential crisis from the private credit sector’s exposures to the billion-dollar collapses of Tricolor, First Brands, and Renovo, we ask Is Private Credit Bubbling Over? and illustrate why banks should never settle for a zero-sum game.

At times like these, under conditions that make it near impossible to be two steps ahead, it is mission critical that we move in concert in order to carve a common future.

The Editor