What Would ASEAN Crypto Passporting Change?
Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has backed a regional passporting system that would allow cryptocurrency companies licensed in one ASEAN country to enter other member states through a simplified approval process.
Speaking Tuesday during the “One ASEAN, One Digital Economy” fireside chat at the ASEAN Tech Summit Manila 2026, Zhao supported a proposal raised by FinTech Alliance PH founding chair Lito Villanueva for regulatory passporting or license portability.
Under the proposed approach, regulators in each host country could still review an applicant, impose local conditions and reject firms that fail to meet their standards. Companies would not, however, need to repeat an entire licensing application after already completing a comparable process elsewhere in the region.
Zhao said cross-border coordination was mainly a political challenge rather than a technical one. “I think that’s mostly a political problem,” he said, arguing that the systems required to support regional access would be relatively simple to build.
A passporting model could lower legal and compliance expenses for exchanges, stablecoin issuers and other digital asset companies seeking to operate across Southeast Asia. It could also make regional expansion more practical for smaller regulated firms that cannot afford to maintain separate licensing teams in every market.
Why Is ASEAN Difficult For Crypto Companies?
ASEAN member states regulate cryptocurrency and digital asset services separately. A company licensed in one country does not automatically gain access to neighboring markets, even when its ownership, compliance systems and services remain unchanged.
This creates repeated approval processes for firms seeking a regional presence. Companies may need to submit similar corporate records, risk controls, financial statements and anti-money laundering procedures to several regulators, while adapting their operations to different national rules.
The result is a fragmented market in which large platforms can absorb the cost of multiple applications more easily than smaller competitors. Zhao argued that allowing more licensed providers to enter regional markets could improve service quality and reduce costs for consumers.
Passporting would not create a single ASEAN crypto regulator or remove national oversight. A workable system would more likely rely on mutual recognition, shared minimum standards and faster authorization for firms already supervised by another participating jurisdiction.
Investor Takeaway
A regional passport could make ASEAN more attractive to regulated crypto companies by reducing duplicated licensing work. The main obstacle is whether governments can agree on common standards without giving up control over their domestic markets.
Does ASEAN Already Use Financial Passporting?
ASEAN does not currently offer a bloc-wide passport for cryptocurrency companies, but its financial regulators have adopted narrower cross-border arrangements in other areas.
The ASEAN Capital Markets Forum operates the Collective Investment Schemes Framework, which allows a fund authorized in its home jurisdiction to be offered in participating host countries through a streamlined approval process. The program began operating in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand in 2014, while the Philippines joined in 2021.
The forum also introduced the ACMF Pass through its Professional Mobility Framework. Eligible investment advisers licensed in one participating jurisdiction can receive fast-track registration to provide services in another without completing a second full licensing process.
Both arrangements remain subject to host-country requirements and cover narrower activities than the crypto passport proposed in Manila. They nevertheless show that ASEAN regulators have previously used mutual recognition and simplified authorization to support regional financial integration.
Those precedents could provide a starting point for digital assets. Regulators could initially limit passporting to specific services or companies that meet agreed capital, custody, governance and customer protection standards before extending the system more widely.
Could ASEAN Follow The European Union?
The European Union offers a more direct comparison through the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation. A crypto-asset service provider authorized in one member state can use passporting rights to operate across the bloc after notifying its home regulator about the countries and services involved.
ASEAN would face a more difficult path because its members have different legal systems, financial policies and approaches to cryptocurrency. Some countries permit licensed trading and payment services, while others maintain tighter restrictions or place greater limits on retail participation.
Zhao acknowledged that national policy differences would make regulatory alignment harder than developing shared technical infrastructure. He nevertheless argued that firms already approved in one ASEAN country should face a lighter process when applying in another.
A regional framework could begin with bilateral agreements or a smaller group of participating markets rather than requiring immediate agreement from every ASEAN member. Authorities could then expand the arrangement as supervisory standards become more closely aligned.
For crypto companies, the commercial benefit would be access to several markets through fewer applications. For regulators, the test would be whether faster entry can be achieved without weakening local controls, consumer safeguards or enforcement powers. ASEAN already has models for limited financial passporting, but extending them to cryptocurrency would require political agreement that has not yet been reached.
