Agentic commerce in Asia-Pacific: what is live and what it means for service

What is running in Asia-Pacific

Visa launched its Agentic Ready programme in Asia-Pacific on 30 April 2026. It is live in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, and its first phase focuses on issuer readiness.¹ In Singapore, 13 banks and fintechs joined at launch, including DBS, OCBC and UOB.²

Mastercard announced its first live, authenticated agentic transaction in Singapore on 4 March 2026, with DBS and UOB. An AI agent booked a ride to Changi Airport through the mobility provider hoppa, using a Mastercard Agentic Token issued to that agent and confirmed with Mastercard Payment Passkeys.³

The protocols, layer by layer

AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol)

Announced by Google in September 2025. Signed mandates record what the user asked for and what they approved, so a merchant and a payment network can verify the agent’s authority.⁴

ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol)

Released by OpenAI with Stripe in September 2025 to let agents and merchants complete checkout, with the merchant remaining the seller of record.⁵

Network tokens for agents

Card networks issue credentials to a specific agent, so the agent never handles the card number. Mastercard’s Agentic Token is one example.³

The market is still settling. In March 2026 OpenAI said the first version of Instant Checkout did not offer the flexibility it wanted, and let merchants use their own checkout while it focused on product discovery.⁶

When the customer is software

Gartner’s July 2026 survey found customers three times more likely to use third-party GenAI than a company chatbot for service, and 58% of GenAI users have had it complete a task.⁷ Gartner has forecast that by 2028, 70% of service journeys will begin and end in third-party assistants on mobile devices.⁸ The same agents that buy will also cancel, rebook and complain.

• Recognise the agentDecide how an agent proves who it acts for, and what it may do on that customer’s behalf.
• Publish policies as dataRefund rules, delivery terms and fees in a form an agent can read without guessing.
• Set limits for agent actionsWhich changes an agent can make alone, and which need the customer to confirm.
• Keep a human route87% of customers expect access to a person when GenAI is involved.⁹
• Count agent contactsTag them in your reporting so you can see the volume grow.