CZ Pushes ASEAN Crypto License Passporting to Cut Compliance Costs

Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has called on ASEAN regulators to let crypto and stablecoin firms operate across the bloc’s ten member states on a single license, rather than filing separate applications in each jurisdiction. Speaking Tuesday at the ASEAN Tech Summit in Manila, Zhao argued that a licensed operator should face a streamlined review when entering a new market, not a full application from scratch.

For an industry where compliance overhead often eats into margins faster than trading volume builds them, the proposal is a direct pitch to cut duplicated legal and regulatory costs across one of the world’s most fragmented digital-asset regions.

What CZ actually proposed

Zhao made the remarks during the “One ASEAN, One Digital Economy” fireside chat, backing an idea first raised on the panel by Lito Villanueva, founding chair of FinTech Alliance PH. The concept, known as license passporting, would let a firm regulated in one ASEAN market enter others through a lighter-touch approval process, with local regulators retaining the right to review applicants but not to demand a fresh, ground-up licensing procedure.

“I think that’s mostly a political problem,” Zhao said of the coordination needed between ASEAN’s regulators, adding that the underlying technology for cross-border passporting is straightforward. He said opening the door to more licensed platforms competing regionally would ultimately improve service quality and lower costs for consumers.

Why ASEAN’s patchwork of licenses matters

ASEAN currently has no bloc-wide passport for crypto companies. Each member state regulates digital assets independently, which means an exchange or stablecoin issuer seeking a regional footprint must clear separate licensing regimes in every country it wants to serve — a process that multiplies legal fees, filing timelines and capital-reserve requirements for firms of every size.

The bloc does have precedent for this kind of streamlining outside crypto. The ASEAN Capital Markets Forum runs a Collective Investment Schemes Framework that lets a fund authorized in its home jurisdiction be offered in participating host markets through a simplified authorization process. That framework was first put into operation in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, giving regulators a template they could adapt for digital-asset licensing.

What it would mean for crypto firms and holders

If ASEAN regulators moved toward passporting, the immediate winners would be exchanges, custodians and stablecoin issuers currently forced to run parallel compliance teams across markets such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Lower entry costs could also translate into narrower spreads and more competitive fee structures for retail users, since Zhao’s core argument is that more licensed platforms competing in a market pushes prices down for consumers.

For now, the idea remains a policy proposal aired at a summit, not a regulatory commitment from any ASEAN government. But with regional bodies already operating a passporting model for investment funds, the infrastructure for a crypto equivalent is not hypothetical — it is a question of whether the bloc’s individual regulators are willing to cede some of their gatekeeping power for the sake of a unified digital-asset market.

Read more: NY AG Letitia James Tells Senate CLARITY Act Would Gut State Fraud Powers

Sources

• cointelegraph.com
• cryptonews.com