Deepening Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ Financial Markets

This paper discusses the financial landscape of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a region engaged in building an economic community (a “single market and production base”) by 2015. In particular, it reviews where ASEAN’s financial markets and institutions now stand and suggests possible ways in which they might be developed further to meet the aspirations of the region. Diversity characterizes the ASEAN financial landscape today. While some countries have relatively developed capital markets, commercial banks and insurance companies, in the others neither the markets nor the institutions are well developed. But regardless of where they are today, size is the critical constraint in all of ASEAN’s domestic financial systems. Thus, promoting regional financial integration is essential to developing a financial system with sufficient depth and liquidity. To support market development and financial integration, regional cooperation would be particularly useful, which could take the form of creating new institutions, such as: a mechanism for monitoring financial integration; a regionwide deposit insurance system; a regional credit rating scheme; a regional financial market supervisory system; a region-wide payment and settlement system; capacity building initiatives; and a consumer protection system. ASEAN’s consensus-driven decision-making process has delayed many of the institutional reforms critical to integration.