SYDNEY – July 9, 2026 – Nearly six in ten (59%) financial crime practitioners in Asia Pacific identify crypto, virtual asset-related activity and mule or scam flows as the most difficult compliance typologies to manage, according to poll results from LexisNexis® Risk Solutions.
The findings also reveal the operational challenges making these risks harder to manage. More than a quarter (27%) of respondents cite disconnected systems and data silos as their biggest strategy gap in the region, while limited visibility across trade relationships and counterparties continues to prevent many institutions from effectively detecting and responding to financial crime.
Two opposing financial crime realities emerge across Asia Pacific
In high-volume payment markets such as the Philippines and Malaysia, institutions are grappling with fast-moving transaction fraud and crypto-related risks. In more mature financial centers, including Singapore and Australia, challenges center on beneficial ownership opacity and fragmented data infrastructure. Hong Kong sits across both realities, with its emerging VASP licensing regime shaping crypto compliance requirements and its position as a cross-border financial hub presenting ownership transparency challenges.
“Financial crime is increasingly network-driven, not transaction-driven,” said Rohit Mittal, director of financial crime compliance, Asia Pacific, LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “Across the region, institutions are dealing with different risk priorities, but the underlying challenge is the same. Risk often sits in the connections between entities and if your data sources are not providing sufficient visibility, those risks can be difficult to detect.”
Distinct market risk profiles
While crypto and scam-related risks feature across the region, market maturity, regulatory environment and cross-border exposure drive different challenges and operational gaps in each market.
- Singapore: Ownership complexity and sanctions evasion define the risk agenda – Seven in ten (70%) Singaporean respondents identified either beneficial ownership or sanctions evasion as the most difficult typologies to manage, compared to 22% of respondents in the Philippines and 40% in Malaysia. Nearly half (46%) identified data silos as their biggest strategy gap which may prevent institutions from building the connected ownership picture that regulators now expect.
- Hong Kong: Crypto licensing drives compliance complexity – Crypto ranks as the biggest compliance challenge for 43% of respondents, followed by transparent ownership (29%), reflecting the city’s role as a gateway for complex cross-border capital structures. Lack of visibility across trade relationships and counterparties, and slow or reactive risk detection were also highlighted as challenges by 40% of respondents.
- Australia: Sanctions pressure meets infrastructure gap – In Australia, sanctions evasion ranks as biggest challenge for a third (33%) of practitioners, with beneficial ownership opacity, mule or scam flows, crypto and trade-based risks each a concern for around one in six (17%). Half of Australian respondents identified disconnected systems and data silos as the primary constraint – the highest of any market – revealing a fundamental infrastructure gap. This fragmentation can make it particularly difficult to identify trade-based money laundering (TBML) risk signals distributed across transaction data, trade documentation and counterparties, limiting institutions’ ability to detect and respond to complex cross-border trade-based financial crime.
Connecting data to close the visibility gap
Although risk priorities vary across markets, limited visibility is a common challenge. Institutions with a more holistic view across customers, counterparties and ownership structures are better equipped to detect risks that siloed systems can easily miss.
“Financial crime does not stop at the boundaries of a single institution,” Mittal added. “Collaborative intelligence gives compliance teams access to patterns and signals that internal data alone will not surface. As financial crime becomes more interconnected and multinational, institutions that fail to connect their data, risk missing the signals that matter most.”
About the poll
The findings are based on live polling conducted during a LexisNexis Risk Solutions webinar: Evolution of FinCrime Risks in 2026: From Sanctions to Shadow Fleets, which captured input from financial crime practitioners across markets in Asia Pacific. This release draws on responses from five markets — Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Malaysia — representing 129 respondents from compliance, risk and financial crime teams in banks, fintechs and payment service providers.
About LexisNexis Risk Solutions
LexisNexis® Risk Solutions provides customers with information-based analytics and decision tools that combine public and industry-specific content with advanced technology and algorithms to assist them in evaluating and predicting risk and enhancing operational efficiency. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, the company has offices throughout the world, serves customers in more than 190 countries and territories and is part of RELX. For more information, please visit LexisNexis Risk Solutions.
