As digital payments, stablecoins and instant cross-border transactions reshape global finance, a fundamental question is emerging: who controls the currencies, infrastructure and rules through which economies transact?
Across Africa and Asia, including ASEAN, governments and financial institutions are navigating the tension between greater financial connectivity and preserving monetary sovereignty. From Cambodia's de-dollarisation efforts to Africa's expanding digital payment ecosystems and regional settlement ambitions, new payment infrastructure is challenging traditional currency dependencies while creating new forms of financial interdependence.
This panel examines whether digital financial integration can strengthen monetary sovereignty, reshape cross-border trade and rebalance economic power or whether the future of money will remain defined by dominant currencies, global platforms and market confidence.

Most stablecoins in circulation are linked to the US dollar. For economies seeking to reduce their dependence on the dollar, that creates a fundamental contradiction: the same technology that can lower the cost of payments may also make dollar-denominated money easier to use. At the same time, local-currency settlement is advancing through bilateral arrangements, regional initiatives and domestic payment systems. The roundtable examines that tension directly. When do stablecoins solve a genuine user problem, and when do they reinforce existing monetary dependence? What would a credible local-currency digital instrument require in reserves, governance, redemption and supervision? And where does local-currency settlement provide a better answer than creating another form of digital money?

Shared payment infrastructure creates value precisely because competitors use the same network, but that makes ownership and funding contentious. Banks may resist paying for infrastructure used by newer competitors. Fintechs may resist access terms controlled by incumbents. Governments may finance the network and still face pressure over unequal access or rising operating costs. Different markets have taken different approaches, including central-bank ownership, industry-owned switches and open-source infrastructure. The roundtable compares these models through three questions: who owns the rail, who gets access and on what terms, and who pays to maintain and upgrade it. It then examines how those choices change once infrastructure crosses borders and sovereignty becomes shared rather than purely national.