The Republic of the Philippines became the latest signatory to the ASEAN collective investment scheme (CIS) Framework on May 11, 2021, moving Southeast Asian capital markets one step closer to integration and potentially increasing the investment options that fund managers in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand and other signatory countries will be able to offer to retail investors in future. The signatory countries’ capital markets regulators—the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippines, the Securities Commission Malaysia, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the SEC of Thailand (leader of the framework’s working group)—announced the successful expansion of the CIS grouping simultaneously on May 11, 2021, after the four regulators signed a supplemental memorandum of understanding to formally admit the Philippines to the framework. The ASEAN CIS Framework was first implemented in 2014 to streamline the process for local regulators to approve foreign CIS units in the region that are authorized in their home countries. The original signatories of the framework were Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Now that the Philippines has joined the grouping, the four signatories’ capital markets regulators will continue to implement the framework’s harmonization of regulations and criteria for asset management firms, fund managers, and mutual funds that are permitted to offer units for sale across the member jurisdictions. This cooperation enabled by the framework eases the bureaucratic red tape associated with the domestic approval process and improve investment protection, thereby resulting in greater opportunities for cross-border fund distributions, product access, investment diversification, and alternatives for retail investors. The Thai SEC has already issued regulations that enable the offering of qualifying funds through the ASEAN CIS Framework, as well as through the Asia Region Funds Passport or foreign exchange-traded funds. Funds that fall under one of these schemes must file registration statements and draft prospectuses to

On May 15, 2021, Decree No. 21/2021/ND-CP of the Government of Vietnam dated March 19, 2021, guiding the implementation of the Civil Code of 2015 on security for performance of obligations (Decree 21) will come into effect.

Thailand has made significant changes to its statutory interest rate framework for the first time in almost a century. Since 1925, the statutory interest rate codified in Thailand’s Civil and Commercial Code (the CCC) has remained at 7.5% per year. But with Covid-19 having an unprecedented impact on the Thai economy, the Thai Government, via emergency decree, has reduced the statutory rate. While the decree is largely aimed at providing relief to hard-hit SMEs and individual debtors, the amendments have broader implications for doing business in Thailand. Main Changes The new interest rate revisions are contained within the Emergency Decree Amending the Civil and Commercial Code B.E. 2564 (2021) (the Emergency Decree), which was published in the Government Gazette on April 10, 2021 and came into effect on April 11, 2021. The Emergency Decree amends Sections 7 and 224 of the CCC, which stated the previous statutory interest rate of 7.5% per year. The Emergency Decree makes three major changes. The first involves a reduction of the statutory interest rate from 7.5% per year to 3% per year in Section 7. The new 3% annual rate is subject to review every three years by the Ministry of Finance. The interest rate is subject to further change later by a royal decree. The second change concerns money debts under Section 224 of the CCC. The previous version of Section 224 stated, among other things, that a money debt based on a default bears interest of 7.5% per year. Under the Emergency Decree, the new actual statutory default interest rate is the statutory interest rate stated in Section 7 with an additional rate of 2% per year. The result is a 5% annual statutory default interest rate. Since the statutory default interest rate is based in part on the Section 7

The Bank of Thailand recently issued policy guidelines on how stablecoins—fiat-backed nonvolatile cryptocurrencies—are to be regulated. This paves the way for baht-backed stablecoins, similar to China’s digital Yuan, to be developed in the jursidiction.