Making Sense of “Digital Payment Tokens” Under the Payment Services Act”

The astronomical increase in prices of digital assets in late 2017 and the ensuing mainstream frenzy caught the attention of financial regulators around the world due to concerns of consumer protection and money laundering. While attention from the media has faded due to the precipitous drop in the prices of digital assets, those of the regulators have not. Within Southeast Asia alone, Thailand and Indonesia have introduced laws in the past year to regulate certain aspects of distributed ledger technology and digital assets. Change is also imminent in Singapore. The Payment Services Act (“PS Act”), which will establish a new…...