EP 380 - Why Is Payment Optionality Critical for the Future of Digital Commerce? - Deborah Im

Digital commerce in Asia is undergoing a profound transformation. The rise of mobile payments, government-backed payment rails, and local digital wallets is reshaping how people pay and how businesses operate. This shift is driven not only by convenience but by necessity, as financial inclusion increasingly depends on the ability to support local payment methods.

In this episode of ATP, we speak with Deborah Im, about the fast-moving evolution of digital commerce in Asia.

Some of the topics that Deborah covered in detail include:

• Payment optionality Is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s a strategic necessity. It’s the key to unlocking customer access and revenue.
• Government-built payment rails could be FinTech’s biggest competitors as PayNow (Singapore), UPI (India), and PromptPay (Thailand) are offering free or nearly free money transfers—domestically and cross-border.
• Data localization laws are fragmenting the internet—and potentially slowing innovation.
• AI has transformed legal and operational work—but still needs better data access.
• Asia is winning the FinTech race because it’s still scrappy. Its dynamism comes not from copying the West, but from building solutions tailored to fragmented, cash-heavy, mobile-first economies.