Hong Kong Tests ‘Know Your Agent’ Controls for AI Payments

AI agents are gaining the ability to initiate payments, top up wallets and transfer funds on behalf of users, exposing a gap in financial identity controls. Existing Know Your Customer and Know Your Business frameworks verify people and companies but were not designed to establish an AI agent’s identity, authority or accountability. Hong Kong’s HKMA, SFC, Insurance Authority and MPFA are using GenA.I. Sandbox++ to explore governance for more autonomous financial systems.

The four regulators and Cyberport said on Aug. 27 that they had selected 36 use cases from nearly 100 proposals, involving 30 financial institutions and 27 technology partners. Technical trials are due to begin later in 2026. HKT Payment will work with Red Date Technology on an “Agentic ID” framework using Decentralised Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials to register and verify AI agents initiating payments, wallet top-ups, peer-to-peer transfers and transactions between financial institutions.