KYC Burden on Smaller Asian Financial Institutions

Been thinking a bit lately about the ever-increasing weight of KYC requirements, particularly for some of the smaller players in the Asian financial scene. We see major banks with huge compliance departments, but what about the regional brokerages or even some of the fintech startups in places like Thailand or Vietnam? They're often dealing with significant volumes of cross-border transactions, sometimes from jurisdictions that might be considered higher risk, and the regulatory landscape is constantly evolving.

How are these smaller entities managing the escalating compliance costs and the sheer manpower needed to keep up with AML checks and customer due diligence? It feels like the resource disparity could become a real competitive disadvantage, or worse, lead to blind spots if they're forced to cut corners. Curious to hear if anyone has direct experience or insights into how this is playing out on the ground, especially for firms that aren't top-tier global institutions but are still critical to the local financial ecosystem.