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Singapore is gearing up to reveal a comprehensive “value unlock” package by the end of the year aimed at reviving the nation’s stock market, regulators said. Key initiatives will likely build on the Equity Market Development Programme, stronger listing incentives, streamlined regulations and enhanced shareholder rights, intended to improve liquidity, listings and investor confidence.

The EQDP, a S$5 billion programme announced earlier in the year, will see its first tranche of S$1.1 billion allocated to three asset managers—Avanda Investment Management, JP Morgan Asset Management and Fullerton Fund Management—to invest in Singapore-listed equities. These selections were made partly based on alignment with objectives to broaden participation beyond large-cap stocks and strengthen asset-management capabilities.

Alongside co-investment funding, tax incentives are being offered for primary and secondary listings. A 20 per cent corporate income tax rebate applies for qualifying new primary listings, and a 10 per cent rebate for secondary ones. There is also pressure to ease regulatory requirements around prospectus disclosures, shorten IPO-approval timelines, and allow earlier investor outreach in IPOs.

Regulatory reforms under consideration include reducing the profit requirement for Mainboard listings, aligning secondary listing rules with international disclosure standards, and possibly removing the financial watch-list mechanism for loss-making firms while increasing the role of disclosure over prescriptive reporting.

Market analysts welcome the measures but caution that they may not address deeper structural weaknesses. Singapore’s exchange has seen more delistings than IPOs in many months, a low number of growth-stage listings, a prevalence of companies with weak profitability, and low free floats among many issued shares. These factors have limited trading depth and made it harder for mid-caps to attract institutional investors.

Insolvency reform is also part of the picture. Proposed changes to Singapore’s Companies Act would broaden the so-called cross-class “cram-down” powers, letting restructuring plans be imposed even over dissenting shareholders in certain cases. The proposals include streamlining processes for issuing new shares or disposing of assets during restructuring, and revising compensation frameworks for restructuring managers.

Regulatory agencies such as the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Singapore Exchange Regulation, and the Equities Market Review Group are all involved in shaping the yet-to-be-announced package. Public consultations on many proposals have taken place or are underway, especially around IPO rules, listing thresholds, and listing admission criteria.

Pi Network is poised for a high-profile showing at TOKEN2049 in Singapore on 1–2 October, where co-founder Dr Chengdiao Fan will present the project’s vision amid concerns over price decline, token unlocks, and technological progress. As a Gold Sponsor of the event, Pi is seeking to use the platform to address major challenges to its growth and credibility.

Dr Fan’s speech is expected to centre on blockchain’s capacity for real-world societal utility, tackling Web3 obstacles such as governance, decentralisation, and adoption in under-served regions. The Pi Core Team says she will offer updates on how Pi plans to translate its mobile-mining community into meaningful applications and ecosystem engagement. The announcement confirms both the speaking engagement and the sponsorship role.

The project confronts several critical headwinds. The native token PI has lost substantial value in recent months, dropping from highs to levels around US$0.34, placing it near a psychological resistance zone. Market watchers note that upcoming token unlocks—scheduled for late September—may significantly increase supply, potentially weighing further on price. Liquidity concerns and limited exchange listings continue to cast doubt on how quickly Pi can scale beyond its existing user base.

Even so, community sentiment has perked up. Many Pioneers believe TOKEN2049 could act as a catalyst for a short-term breakout, with expectations of new roadmap disclosures, technological upgrades or partnerships. Some analysts caution that past events—such as previous conference appearances—have triggered spikes followed by sell-pressure, a pattern called “sell-the-news.”

Another issue for Pi Network is how it balances hype with substance. Technical progress, including support for Linux nodes, decentralized KYC procedures, and scalability upgrades, is viewed as crucial if the network is to build trust with developers, regulators and investors. On governance, Dr Fan’s academic background in social computing and anthropology has raised expectations that she will address how Pi plans to foster community-led consensus and trust.

Australia’s Reserve Bank, through Assistant Governor Brad Jones, has warned that the era of stability and integration following the Cold War has given way to a more contested strategic environment that carries elevated risk for governments, financial institutions, and markets. At a FINSIA event in Sydney on 12 September, Jones declared that “the era of the peace dividend is over,” citing geopolitical, technological and operational disruptions reshaping the global financial order.

Jones described the international security and economic system as undergoing “seismic adjustment — on a scale and speed unseen in eight decades.” He flagged multiple forces contributing to instability: rising strategic rivalry, weakening tenets of the rules-based order, frictions in globalisation, and increasing emphasis on self-insurance by nations and firms against a broader set of possible harms.

Technological advances form one front of the risk profile. Jones spoke of an expanding surface for cyber-attacks driven by digitalisation, concerns over concentration risk in cloud services, and quantum computing’s looming threat to encryption systems. Artificial intelligence, while promising productivity gains, poses risks of misinformation, fraud, and systemic instability due to herding behaviour.

Critical infrastructure exposures were cited as especially vulnerable: telecommunications networks, the electrical grid, payment systems, and market infrastructure. Jones referenced a recent example in Europe, where cascading power outages in the Iberian Peninsula disrupted both households and economic activity, pointing out that such disruptions would be far more dangerous if key financial infrastructure were affected.

To respond, the RBA is pressing for what it calls an “anti-fragile” financial system—one not simply capable of withstanding shocks but able to adapt and improve because of them. Innovation, competition, and efficiency are being positioned not as opposing goals to resilience but as complementary. Initiatives under way include work with industry to bolster payments resilience, frameworks to ensure that future payments systems embed reliability and recoverability, migration to quantum-safe encryption standards, and reforms aimed at enabling new entrants in financial market infrastructure to reduce concentration risk.

These concerns build on earlier warnings in the RBA’s Financial Stability Review, which noted that heightened geopolitical tensions, trade uncertainty, and technological vulnerabilities could interact with existing financial system risks. The review flagged operational risks from interconnectedness and dependency on third parties for infrastructure and services.

The shift has implications for monetary policy, regulatory oversight, and business strategy. Regulators are likely to place greater emphasis on risk scenarios involving geopolitics, cyber-threats and supply-chain disruptions; financial institutions will need to review and stress-test against non-traditional threats while ensuring agility; and policy frameworks may need to evolve to address threats outside standard macroeconomic shocks.

Taraf, the real-estate arm of Yas Holding, has entered a joint venture with Masdar City to build a residential community covering 1.4 million square metres within Masdar City, Abu Dhabi’s flagship sustainable innovation hub. The development will offer over 1,000 homes, including two- to six-bedroom villas and townhouses, with freehold ownership options.

Designed around a neighbourhood cluster model, the community emphasises human-centred amenities: shaded walkways, cycling routes linked to Al Masar Park, numerous parks, and extensive open spaces for wellbeing and active lifestyles. The layout will also include family-friendly infrastructure: dedicated clubs, safe environments for children, and walkable areas throughout.

Low Ping, Group CEO of Yas Holding, said that this project reflects Taraf’s strategy of building “design-led communities that inspire modern living where sustainability and innovation come together,” and that it aligns with Abu Dhabi’s Falcon Economy Vision for dynamic, connected growth. Ahmed Baghoum, CEO of Masdar City, emphasised the intention for the development to combine Taraf’s design focus with Masdar’s sustainability framework, creating a place “where people can live, work, learn, and innovate” under low-carbon principles.

This project represents a growing trend in the UAE towards full-community developments built on sustainable, low-carbon design and green infrastructure. Masdar City has already established itself as a leader in eco-innovation, hosting many businesses, research centres and incubation hubs under strict environmental standards. The inclusion of freehold ownership is relatively rare in developments of this nature in Masdar City, potentially making the homes attractive to investors and owners seeking long-term assets.

Investors and urban planners are likely to monitor how the community balances high design and sustainable living with affordability and infrastructure delivery. Ensuring that walkable, shaded and bike-friendly pathways are effectively integrated, as well as ensuring accessibility of services such as schools, healthcare and public transport, will be critical to the success of the development.

Regulatory and market conditions in Abu Dhabi have been increasingly favourable to sustainable urban development, with government policy pushing for low-carbon goals, renewable energy adoption, and integrated infrastructure. Abu Dhabi’s Falcon Economy Vision is central to this, aiming for economic diversification and environmental sustainability together.

SwissBorg has lost about $41 million worth of Solana after a breach in a third-party API linked to its staking partner Kiln, which facilitated its SOL Earn programme. The incident affected fewer than 1% of users and represented roughly 2% of SwissBorg’s total assets under management.

The vulnerability originated in Kiln’s API — the software interface SwissBorg uses to communicate with Solana’s staking network. By exploiting that interface, attackers manipulated staking requests tied to the SOL Earn product and diverted approximately 192,600 SOL to an external wallet. SwissBorg and Kiln stated that the main SwissBorg app and all other Earn products remain secure. SwissBorg has paused Solana staking transactions while investigations continue.

SwissBorg CEO Cyrus Fazel described the event as “a bad day,” assuring customers that operations remain stable. The company pledged to reimburse all affected users, confirmed it has sufficient treasury reserves to cover losses, and is working with law enforcement, white-hat hackers, and security firms to block stolen transactions and trace funds. Some transfers have already been intercepted, according to its statement.

Kiln acknowledged that the breach involved “unauthorised access to a wallet used for staking operations.” SwissBorg and Kiln jointly activated their incident response protocols upon detection, aiming to contain the damage.

Industry experts flag this as yet another example of how dependence on external service providers exposes crypto platforms to infrastructure-level risk. In recent years, comparable API and smart-contract vulnerabilities have been exploited across the sector, prompting calls for more rigorous audits and redundancy in trust relationships.