With decentralized finance challenging the centralized financial system by empowering individuals with peer-to-peer digital exchanges, it becomes a catalyst for financial institutions to transition from legacy systems to blockchain-based systems. For instance, with regard to cross-border payments, there is a trend of blockchain technology disrupting traditional financial systems.

However, the key challenge for regulators and the crypto space is: how do we stop threat actors from taking advantage of decentralized protocols while securing legitimate transactions.

Large organizations in Asia-Pacific have established tokenized CBDC - Central Bank Digital Currency - and linked their domestic payments network to the respective banks to enable a cross-border payment transaction using CBDC currency to reduce friction and offer better security and stability.

In this insightful discussion, Phoram Mehta, senior director, APAC CISO, PayPal; Aarthi Sureshkumar, global head - IT governance risk and compliance, Gojek; and Shishir Kumar Singh, group head of information security, Advance Intelligence Group, discuss:

• The impact of decentralized finance on APAC's banking system;
• Use of blockchain in establishing secure transactions;
• Tokenization of CBDC in establishing frictionless secure payments transaction.