SEA

Private equity (PE) investment in Southeast Asia fell sharply in the second quarter of 2026, with 10 deals worth $935.5 million, compared with 19 deals worth $9.2 billion in the previous quarter, according to the EY-Parthenon's Southeast Asia Private Equity Pulse for Q2/2026 report.

ASEAN+3 economies need to bring together artificial intelligence (AI), energy infrastructure and digital payment systems to navigate a potential new wave of dollar dependence as AI reshapes the global economy, the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) said on Thursday.

Southeast Asia's 12 leading payment startups have collectively raised over $2.7 billion in equity funding till date, with the top two companies accounting for approximately 83 percent of the total capital raised, Tracxn said Wednesday.

As digital commerce matures in Southeast Asia, the region's shift to digital payments is accelerating as merchant searches jump, according to a PayMongo’s analysis of five years of Google Trends data across six markets: Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The United States is investing more than $2.5 billion in Southeast Asia, headlined by a new artificial intelligence (AI) initiative to export American AI technology across the region and a $1.5 billion platform to build out energy infrastructure.

Maybank Investment Bank said Monday that it sees Singapore's largest mobile network operator a communications technology group Singtel as a long-term beneficiary of Physical AI in ASEAN, while its data centers, GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) offering and connectivity assets position it well to capture near-term growth from digital artificial intelligence (AI).

ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) said Monday it is projecting the ASEAN+3 region to grow by 4.1 percent in 2026, up from its June forecast of 4 percent, reflects sustained momentum in the region’s technology sector, particularly robust demand for semiconductors and other artificial intelligence (AI)-related products.

New U.S. Section 301 tariffs took effect on Friday (July 24) across 60 economies, hitting seven Southeast Asian nations: Malaysia, Cambodia, and Indonesia with a 10 percent additional duty, while Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and Singapore face the higher rate of 12.5 percent.

Japan's JCB International and Malaysia's Fiuu, a payment processing platform formerly known as Razer Merchant Services, have entered into a direct acquiring partnership covering Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, enabling JCB card payments across online and offline merchant channels in the three markets.

Singapore's Ant International has added Hong Kong's Hang Seng Bank to its Alipay+ payment network as the gateway's first banking partner in Hong Kong, allowing Hang Seng Mobile App users to make QR code payments at more than 100 million merchants across more than 55 countries and regions.