aspg-37-4446-1792223344 20261017074904 American Scientific Publishing Group admin@americaspg.com American Scientific Publishing Group Financial Technology and Innovation FinTechI 2836-5372 2026 6 2 Mustafa Musa Center of Research and Innovation Management, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Malaysia Raden Aur Aachman Azakiyullah Department of Information System, Universitas Alma Ata, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Indonesia and Malaysia are a perfect example of the global FinTech order: two of the world’s biggest Muslim-majority economies with growing and fast expanding digital financial infrastructure, with different regulatory architectures and at different stages of maturity of the cryptocurrency market. In this paper, a systematic review of 40 peer-reviewed studies on technology infrastructure for financial markets in general, the dynamics and adoption of cryptocurrencies, design of central bank digital currencies, Islamic FinTech, and comparative regulatory frameworks in both countries is presented. The review includes five thematic streams: digital payment infrastructure, connectedness of the cryptocurrency market, CBDC development, CBDC Shariah compliance, and financial inclusion enabled by FinTech. The Key findings indicate that Indonesia, under the guidance of the Otoritas Jasa Keuangan (OJK) since 2023, has more than 30 licensed exchanges and an estimated 15 million retail investors, while Malaysia’s Securities Commission (SC) prioritises investor protection over market breadth, issuing five exchanges with higher levels of integration in Islamic finance. There are three structural challenges in both jurisdictions: the lack of ASEAN-level regulatory coordination, the digital infrastructure gap that remains in rural populations and the lack of a harmonized screening mechanism for assets based on Shariah. The review pinpoints 7 high-priority research gaps and outlines a research agenda for the future, organized in 5 methodological pillars. 2026 17 25 4446 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 10.54216/FinTech-I.060203 https://americaspg.com/journal/37/article/4446 https://americaspg.com/storage/articles/manuscripts/01KXQ0K3XQH8WBYQ4QZ858XRHY.pdf