HSBC joins Asia payments group to set agentic AI standards

The Emerging Payments Association Asia has launched an AI and Agentic Payments Working Group, naming HSBC as a founding member, as payment providers seek common rules for transactions initiated by autonomous software. EPAA said the group will focus on standards for identity, authentication, liability and fraud controls across Asia Pacific, where it expects agentic commerce to grow at a compound annual rate of nearly 45% through 2031.

Agentic payments involve AI systems taking action for a consumer or business, such as approving a purchase, paying an invoice or renewing a service. The payment may still use existing rails, cards or account-to-account systems, but the instruction is triggered by software operating under a mandate rather than by a person clicking to approve each step.

EPAA said AI agents are already being used for payments in the region. HSBC and Mastercard piloted end-to-end business-to-business agentic commerce transactions in May for two clients based in Singapore, according to the association. Alipay’s AI Pay processed more than 120mn autonomous transactions in a week in February, while Mastercard completed its first live consumer authenticated agentic payment in Asia Pacific in March, EPAA said.

The association said the industry lacks agreed regional standards on several core issues: who bears responsibility when an AI agent acts outside its authorised scope, how agents should be identified across borders, how fraud systems should treat machine-speed activity, and how disputes should be handled when software initiates a transaction.

Liability and fraud questions

EPAA cited analysis by the International Monetary Fund that current liability regimes assume human intent and direct causation, which can become unclear when an autonomous agent makes an independent decision. The association also pointed to regulatory activity in Europe, including PSD3, the EU AI Act and work on “Know Your Agent” approaches for identity and transparency.

The liability question is material for payment service providers because AI agents can initiate transactions at speed and volume. EPAA referred to legal analysis of the UK’s mandatory authorised push payment fraud reimbursement model, under which liability is split between sending and receiving payment service providers, warning that a similar structure for agentic AI could create significant exposure for providers because of the scale at which agents can authorise payments.

Fraud controls pose a separate operational challenge. Many detection systems are trained to identify patterns in human behaviour. EPAA said those systems may treat legitimate agentic activity as suspicious if an authorised agent transacts faster or in a different pattern than a human user, increasing the risk of false positives at scale.

Policy work through 2027

The working group will include banks, payment networks, fintech companies, technology platforms and other participants in the payments sector, according to EPAA. Its agenda covers common infrastructure for agent identity and authorisation, liability frameworks for failed or unauthorised payments, commercial models for agentic commerce, and coordinated engagement with governments and regulators across ASEAN and APEC.

EPAA said the group’s positions will be developed through an 18-month engagement process with ASEAN and APEC governments and central banks. Formal policy paper recommendations are scheduled for delivery at the 51st ASEAN Summit and APEC Economic Leaders’ Week in November 2027.

Camilla Bullock, EPAA’s chief executive, said AI agents are already transacting across Asia Pacific “at scale, at machine speed” without regulatory architecture covering liability, identity and fraud risks. She said the working group is intended to bring industry participants together and take common positions to regulators and governments across ASEAN and APEC.

Nicholas Soo, managing director and Asia head of payment products for global payments solutions at HSBC, said the bank’s pilot transactions showed how B2B agentic commerce can be carried out with control, transparency and risk management from the start. He said HSBC would work with other members to build foundations for agentic commerce.

Membership places are open to EPAA members across the Asia Pacific payments ecosystem. EPAA said the committee will include 10 to 12 organisations, with up to 30 organisations participating at working group level, and that places close in November 2026.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra Research.