Governments and financial institutions in Southeast Asia urgently need to find a way to safely and quickly share data if they hope to contain a surge in scams, as cybersecurity experts warn that artificial intelligence is enabling criminal operations in the region to expand their reach rapidly.
Criminal enterprises stole as much as US$114 billion from victims across the Asia-Pacific in 2025, according to a United Nations report released in July, more than triple the amount from two years earlier, aided by AI and other technology.
The scourge of scams and financial crime could become worse with the adoption of agentic AI, which experts say could allow criminals to automate and scale their operations with unprecedented speed.
As such, regulators and institutions in the region need to prepare for a worst-case scenario and establish effective mechanisms to safely share data across borders, allowing them to identify and disrupt scam operations before they spread and do damage.
