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Singapore-headquartered StoneBench’s new research Fragmentation Finance maps how geopolitics is reshaping Asian finance
SINGAPORE, Aug. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As Middle East tensions and US-China competition reshape global capital flows, Asian financial institutions are faced with a new reality: geopolitical risk has moved from being boardroom talk to driving real-time treasury and credit decisions. StoneBench, a Singapore-based thought leadership advisory and editorial studio that works with some of the region’s most prominent institutions, has published Fragmentation Finance, a research hub that examines how geopolitical shocks are rewiring capital, currency and credit across Asia-Pacific.
This hub marks the latest addition to StoneBench Perspectives, the firm’s independent publishing arm, and builds on a body of client work for some of the world’s most recognisable brands.
Navigating changes in Asian finance
Fragmentation Finance argues that the dollar-anchored, open-market order of the post-Cold War decades is eroding and that the Iran-US conflict is only the latest in a series of events accelerating this shift.
The research identifies five structural changes now underway:
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Geopolitical risk has moved from quarterly country reviews onto banks’ balance sheets
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Local currency settlement is accelerating. Even as the dollar remains the pre-eminent currency for settlement, there’s strong momentum toward the greater use of parallel payment rails such as CIPS
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Capital is migrating toward jurisdictions perceived to be safe, and Asian hubs are the natural beneficiaries for now
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Climate risk is being embedded into credit decisions although high oil prices are also pulling the region back towards coal
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Southeast Asia stands to be a structural beneficiary given its neutrality, demographics, and its economies’ participation in multiple trade corridors
The hub numbers. Hong Kong now carries US$58 billion in cross-border claims on the Gulf Cooperation Council, making it the most exposed Asian lender in the region. Singapore’s population of ultra-high-net-worth individuals has grown fivefold in under five years, and there’s a surge of family offices looking to set up base in the city-state. Meanwhile, central banks’ holdings of US Treasuries have fallen to their lowest level since 2012, with gold overtaking them for the first time since 1996.
The hub’s centrepiece is a full-length whitepaper: In the eye of the storm, that traces the shift caused by recent geopolitical developments across shipping and insurance, capital reallocation, wealth migration, the search for alternatives to the dollar, and the energy transition.
