HSBC Joins EPAA Agentic Payments Group as Founding Member

Agentic commerce allows AI systems to shop, settle invoices and initiate payments for consumers and businesses, shifting decisions once made by people to autonomous software. The shift is gathering pace in Asia Pacific, but the region lacks common rules for agent identity, authentication, authorisation, fraud detection and liability when an agent exceeds its mandate. The Emerging Payments Association Asia, or EPAA, is bringing banks, payment networks, fintechs and technology platforms together to close those gaps and support secure, scalable adoption.

EPAA launched the AI & Agentic Payments Working Group on July 20, 2026, with HSBC as a founding member. HSBC and Mastercard had already piloted end-to-end B2B agentic commerce transactions for two Singapore-based clients in May 2026, while Alipay’s AI Pay handled more than 120 million autonomous transactions in one week in February. The group will run an 18-month engagement with ASEAN and APEC governments and central banks, aiming to deliver formal policy recommendations at the 51st ASEAN Summit and APEC Economic Leaders’ Week in November 2027.