Established in late 2015, the ASEAN Economic Community represents a significant achievement in a decade’s long process towards regional financial integration. Although far from complete, integration of finance throughout the region plays a key role in the financial sector’s continued development, facilitating greater access to insurance, capital markets, and banking.
Improved access to these services not only improves allocation efficiency and increases economic growth, but it concurrently lowers the cost of capital. However, even as progress is made in harmonizing the sector, liberalization of financial services remains objectively more complex than other areas of liberalization such as reduction of tariff rates on particular goods, and thus requires more time to implement.
To gain a more in depth understanding of ASEAN’s efforts to integrate financial services, it is important to understand the progress that the region has seen in recent years as well as the continued efforts and existing challenges faced by governments within the region in 2016.