Building a Unified Framework for Foreign Exchange Data in ASEAN+3 Economies

The ADB’s Asian Bond Markets Initiative Brief No. 14 highlights how adopting the ISO 20022 standard can harmonize foreign exchange regulatory reporting across ASEAN+3, enhancing transparency, efficiency, and data quality. It urges regional collaboration to modernize financial oversight and support seamless cross-border payments in the digital era.

The Asian Bond Markets Initiative Brief No. 14, prepared by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the ASEAN+3 Bond Market Forum (ABMF), explores how digital transformation and data standardization are revolutionizing foreign exchange (FX) regulatory reporting across East and Southeast Asia. Drawing on insights from ADB experts and regional research institutes, the study underscores how new technologies and financial messaging standards, especially ISO 20022, can help harmonize reporting practices across the 13 ASEAN+3 economies. As economic systems digitize and global payments accelerate, regulators must modernize their frameworks to ensure transparency, efficiency, and resilience in the region’s expanding cross-border markets.

The Push Toward Real-Time Regulatory Data

The brief explains that financial data exchange is evolving rapidly due to technological advances, rising client expectations, and stricter compliance demands. Customers now want instant access to their financial data, while regulators seek timely, structured information to guide monetary policy and detect risks. ISO 20022, a global standard for financial messaging, enables the exchange of richer, standardized data, allowing for real-time monitoring of payments and transactions. It helps reduce redundant reporting and enhances both data quality and analytical accuracy. Regulators can thus respond faster to market developments and improve surveillance while easing the compliance burden on financial institutions.

Challenges in Cross-Border Payment Reporting

Across ASEAN+3, most central banks mandate FX transaction reporting to track exchange rate movements, capital flows, and balance-of-payments (BOP) data. Initially, these systems supported capital control, but their role has expanded to data collection and macroeconomic surveillance. However, reporting mechanisms remain fragmented. Each country uses its own reporting formats, submission intervals, and classification systems, making it difficult to compare or consolidate regional data. The brief aligns this issue with the G20 Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-Border Payments (2023), which aims to make global payments faster, cheaper, and more transparent. Implementing ISO 20022, the report argues, could create a “win–win” scenario, cutting compliance costs for banks while giving regulators better data to monitor markets and counter illicit financial flows.

Diverse National Systems, Shared Goals

The study presents detailed case studies of five ASEAN+3 economies, showcasing both diversity and commonalities. Indonesia’s SISMONTAVAR system, launched in 2021, enables near real-time reporting, requiring banks to report all significant FX trades every 30 minutes. The Republic of Korea’s FEIS, operated by the Bank of Korea, integrates over 100 input reports into 600 analytical outputs for policy, market monitoring, and risk management. Malaysia’s ROMS, run by Bank Negara Malaysia, focuses on capital flow analysis and compliance, using consolidated reports from licensed onshore banks and their overseas affiliates. The Philippines’ ITRS, fully implemented in 2024, gathers FX transaction data from all regulated banks to support BOP compilation and prudential supervision. Thailand’s Data Management System, operated by the Bank of Thailand, requires 15 datasets on FX transactions, submitted in two stages, first when an agreement is made, and again when the transaction settles. Despite these differences, all systems share common objectives: ensuring financial stability, enhancing transparency, and improving data-driven policymaking.

Building a Common Language for ASEAN+3

The report identifies several core data elements common to all systems, including transaction date, amount, currency, exchange rate, counterparty, and purpose. However, inconsistencies in how these are reported hinder cross-market integration. For example, Malaysia is currently the only country mandating the use of a Legal Entity Identifier (LEI), a global 20-character code that uniquely identifies entities involved in financial transactions. Korea requires LEIs for foreign investors, and Thailand uses them for bond registration. The report recommends expanding LEI usage regionwide to improve transparency and fraud prevention. It also finds that coding systems, transaction categories, and purpose classifications vary widely, complicating regional comparison. Standardizing these elements under ISO 20022 would allow data to flow seamlessly across jurisdictions, reducing duplication and facilitating more accurate regional analysis.

A Pathway Toward Regional Standardization

In its final section, the brief calls for collaborative action through the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and its Payments Interoperability and Extension Taskforce (PIE), which works on aligning ISO 20022 implementation worldwide. It proposes the creation of a regional working group under the ABMF framework to coordinate standardization across finance ministries, central banks, and statistical offices. The Asian Development Bank would serve as secretariat, promoting dialogue between the public and private sectors. The report emphasizes that sustained support from ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors is vital for success.

The brief concludes that harmonizing FX regulatory reporting through ISO 20022 and LEI integration can transform the region’s compliance systems into engines of efficiency and transparency. By embracing structured, interoperable data practices, ASEAN+3 economies can modernize financial oversight, reduce costs, and strengthen resilience. This convergence, the ADB argues, will position Asia as a global leader in digital financial governance, fostering a more transparent and connected regional market.