On August 18, 2025, Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, the Anti-Money Laundering Office, and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, announced the launch of TouristDigiPay. The initiative, implemented under the SEC’s Regulatory Sandbox, allows foreign tourists to convert digital assets into Thai baht for use in everyday transactions in Thailand. Foreign tourists who opt to participate in TouristDigiPay must open two accounts once they are in Thailand: An account with a licensed digital asset operator to sell or exchange digital assets for Thai baht; and A tourist wallet account with a licensed e-money operator regulated by the Bank of Thailand. Funds from digital asset sales will be transferred into the tourist wallet, enabling tourists to make payments at participating merchants that accept e-money. Key Regulatory Requirements The TouristDigiPay project will operate for a period of up to 18 months, with the following conditions: Only licensed digital asset brokers, dealers, and exchanges integrated with licensed e-money operators are eligible to participate. Operators must implement anti-money laundering (AML) protocols that are proportionate to the assessed risk level. These include: Conducting know-your-customer and customer-due-diligence (KYC/CDD) checks on all users. For monthly transactions exceeding THB 50,000 per person, verifying the source of the digital assets and assessing AML risk using internationally recognized blockchain forensic tools or equivalent procedures. Suspending or rejecting services if digital assets are transferred from wallets flagged for AML concerns. Ensuring that conversion between digital assets and fiat includes safeguards such as matching account names and returning digital assets only to the original wallet. The following transaction limits apply to participants in the TouristDigiPay initiative: Payments to small vendors are capped at THB 50,000 per month. Payments to vendors who have completed the know-your-merchant (KYM) process are capped at THB 500,000 per

More than a decade after the issuance of Decree No. 52/2013/ND-CP (as amended by Decree No. 85/2021/ND-CP; collectively, “Decree 52”), Vietnam’s legal framework for e-commerce is under growing pressure to keep pace with the evolving digital economy. While Decree 52 has provided a foundational framework, it has shown certain limitations in keeping up with issues such as counterfeit goods, intellectual property enforcement, unqualified products, and emerging models like livestream selling and affiliate marketing. To address these regulatory gaps, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) has released the 2025 Draft E-Commerce Law (“Draft Law”) for public consultation. The Draft Law is intended to supersede the current framework under Decree 52 and establish a more detailed and comprehensive legal foundation for the regulations of e-commerce activities in Vietnam. It is currently expected to be submitted to the National Assembly for review and potential adoption during its 10th session in October 2025. In this article, we discuss the Draft Law’s most significant updates and legal developments in comparison to existing regulations, and assess the practical challenges that businesses may face in preparing for implementation in the near future. Platform Classification: Toward a More Nuanced Framework Unlike Decree 52’s simpler structure, which broadly categorized platforms into either (i) websites selling goods and services or (ii) websites providing e-commerce services, the Draft Law introduces a more detailed framework that aims to classify platforms based on their technical functions and business models. Specifically, the Draft Law introduces a four-tier classification system for e-commerce platforms, consisting of: (i) Direct Business Platforms, (ii) Intermediary Platforms, (iii) Social Networks with E-Commerce Functions, and (iv) Multi-Service Integrated Platforms. This approach reflects an effort to more accurately capture the complexity of today’s e-commerce landscape, including hybrid platforms such as TikTok Shop. While this approach reflects the growing complexity of

Thailand’s Office of Insurance Commission (OIC) has opened a public hearing period on its amendments of notifications concerning the timeframe for an insurance company to submit its annual financial statements and financial and operating reports (called “XML reports”). The amended notifications also require insurance companies to submit some data sets from the quarterly capital maintenance reports and XML reports to the OIC in advance, before the full reports are submitted. Key changes in these amended notifications are summarized below. Financial Statements Audited annual financial statements will need to be submitted to the OIC within two months from the last day of each calendar year (i.e., by the end of February of the following year), instead of within four months as currently required. Capital Maintenance Reports While the deadline for submitting quarterly capital maintenance reports is still 45 days from the last day of the quarter, the OIC will now require life and non-life insurance companies to submit a set of data from the report in advance, within 21 days from the last day of each quarter. This data set includes the following information from the capital maintenance report: Form 1 – Calculation of Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) Form 2 – Calculation of Total Capital Available (TCA) Form 4 – Calculation of Capital for Insurance Risk (Table 4.1, 4.2, 4.4, and 4.5 for life insurance companies; Table 4.1 and 4.2 for non-life insurance companies) Financial and Operating Reports (XML Reports) Similar to the audited annual financial statement, the annual XML report will need to be submitted to the OIC within two months from the last day of each calendar year, instead of within the current four-month timeframe. For quarterly XML reports, which must still be submitted within 45 days from the last day of each quarter, there is a new

In response to persistent challenges in food safety management and recent high-profile incidents involving counterfeit supplemented foods, infant formula, and health supplements, the Ministry of Health of Vietnam is initiating comprehensive regulatory reforms. These reforms include proposed amendments to the Law on Food Safety and its implementing Decree No. 15/2018/ND-CP (Decree 15), introducing significant changes to the registration procedures for food products, especially supplemented food products and health supplements. While awaiting public consultation and approval of the amended Law on Food Safety, the Ministry of Health is developing an interim mechanism, which includes a draft decree to replace Decree 15 and a draft resolution to address urgent issues until the amended law becomes effective, expected in July 2026. To align with the new Law on Quality of Products and Goods, the draft resolution stipulates that the declaration and registration of food products will follow the following procedures: Declaration of applied standards for food products, which is currently known as the “self-declaration” procedure, applies to processed packaged foods, food additives, food processing aids, containers or utensils that come into direct contact with food, packaging materials in direct contact with food, and micronutrients. Granting of circulation numbers, which is the current “registration of product declaration” procedure, applies to specific categories of food including health supplements, medical nutrition foods, special dietary foods, nutritional products for children up to 36 months, and, especially, supplemented foods, which are currently subject to self-declaration but will be shifted to this registration procedure. In addition, the following new procedure is introduced in the draft decree: Registration of declaration of conformity, which applies to the same product category as in “declaration of applied standards” above, but is for products that are already subject to technical regulations covering both safety indicators and quality indicators. Changes to the Food Product