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?