June 13, 2025
The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region continues to draw the attention of global financial firms. The ASIFMA 2025 Asia-Pacific Capital Markets Survey, now in its fourth year, brings valuable insights into how survey participants working within financial firms view the opportunities and risks across the region.
Despite geopolitical uncertainties and evolving regulatory requirements, financial firms are generally optimistic about operating and expanding across the APAC region. However, they also recognise the complexities of upholding regulatory obligations while doing business in such a diverse region.
In 2025, firms demonstrate a focus on growth and expansion, with many looking at new ways to stay compliant as they scale across multiple markets.
A key finding from this year’s survey is the strong optimism of firms in doing business in APAC. There is a renewed commitment from firms to increase their presence across the region. The report cites, “More firms said they will increase their presence in APAC markets this year, and no participant intends to exit any market.” The data signals strong confidence in the long-term potential of Asia’s capital markets despite short-term friction points.
Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, and Australia lead the pack in participant ratings of the strength of regulatory environments, scoring 7.55, 7.45, and 7.28, respectively. These ratings indicate the mature regulatory landscape of these markets. Additionally, they underscore the critical need for firms operating in the jurisdictions of the relevant regulators to uphold their obligations or expect swift scrutiny. Mainland China remains the lowest-scoring region across the surveyed areas, with a score of 5.06.
Interestingly, India and China scored significantly lower in the Regulatory Environment category than in the Operating Environment and Market Development categories. Their ratings suggest that regulators in these countries are still catching up to the pace of financial market growth.
Participants express a rising interest in expanding their firms’ presence in the APAC region, growing from 40% the previous year to 59%. Expansion drivers are consistent with the findings of the past three years, focusing on diversifying product and service offerings and scaling existing businesses. Equities and asset management lead the way in terms of offerings firms are targeting for product expansion at 59% and 47%, respectively.
Singapore is seen as the most attractive market for expansion, followed closely by Mainland China and India. China’s investor protection reforms were noted by participants as positive, although firms’ concerns persist regarding regulatory interpretation and consistency. India, praised for its growth potential and freedom from international sanctions, remains in the spotlight for future investment opportunities. However, participants also voiced frustration with the slow pace of market reform.
Operationally, participants viewed workforce skills and language proficiency overall as positives. On the other hand, the geopolitical landscape and cost of doing business still attract concerns.
Geopolitical concerns, ranging from trade tensions and tariffs to data sovereignty regulations, continue to be significant factors in strategic decision-making. However, firms appear to be taking a measured and proactive approach. Most participants reported having long-term strategies in place to manage risks and uncertainty in the current environment. 70% of firms have strategies that incorporate geographic diversification and exposure mitigation and that directly address geopolitical risk.
An improvement in sentiment over previous years is also marked by the absence of any participants reporting they plan to exit the APAC market due to geopolitical impacts.
Participants also expressed their perceived difficulty in operating within regulatory environments across the APAC region. India, Australia, and Mainland China are viewed as the most challenging, indicated by 50%, 43%, and 41% of participants, respectively. Overall, perceptions of regulatory difficulty within the APAC region have increased over the last three years.
Participants indicate that rapid, high-volume changes to regulations and perceived over-regulation are the main difficulties. Fortunately, the tools to help firms stay on top of regulatory change are already available. For example, MyComplianceOffice (MCO) has developed a Horizon Scanning Tool specifically to help firms have confidence in understanding regulatory obligations as changes happen. The tool incorporates AI technology, including Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) models, to help compliance teams stay on top of regulatory changes and efficiently decode the relevance and implications of regulators’ policies, guidance, and enforcement actions.
Part of MCO’s Regulatory Change Manager (RCM) module, the Horizon Scanning Tool understands and classifies obligations and updates from legislation, regulatory standards, guidance, and information papers. It additionally reviews extended sources of information, such as regulatory news, legal documents and enforcement actions. This advanced technology gives compliance professionals a complete picture of how to meet obligations and uphold firm-wide compliance as regulations continue to evolve, including:
Given the diversity and complexity of the regulatory landscape across APAC, financial firms are recognising the value of regulatory technology (RegTech) to achieve robust compliance oversight while reducing risk.
The MyComplianceOffice (MCO) suite of RegTech solutions helps firms stay informed about regulatory changes, keep on top of compliance obligations, monitor activities, and identify red flags in real time, all while easily demonstrating compliance oversight to regulators across multiple jurisdictions.
MCO provides compliance management software that enables companies around the globe to enhance their compliance oversight, strengthen policies and processes, and reduce their risk of financial, operational, and reputational damage.
With offices in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and North America, MCO supports more than 1400 firms in 105 countries. MCO’s largest client uses the platform to manage more than 100,000 employees, and the suite of RegTech solutions supports clients of all sizes across banking and finance, capital markets, investment firms, and corporates in countries including Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Philippines, India, Australia, United Kingdom, the US, and Canada.
Just some of the highlights of the MCO platform’s capabilities include:
It’s clear that firms in APAC are mindful of balancing future growth with robust compliance oversight. The findings of the ASIFMA 2025 Survey suggest that despite the region’s diverse regulatory requirements and addressing geopolitical challenges, firms remain positive about the opportunities ahead. By embracing RegTech solutions such as those offered by MCO, firms can maintain their growth trajectory while remaining confident in reducing conduct risk, providing evidence of oversight, and upholding their obligations at every step.
See more information about the perceptions of the Capital Markets landscape across APAC in the ASIFMA 2025 Asia-Pacific Capital Markets Survey.
