Key Takeaways
- HSBC partnered with Mastercard and Juspay to pilot business-to-business agentic payments in Singapore
- An AI agent executed ordering through settlement across a corporate buyer, SourceSage and FortyTwo
- After the spotlight on consumer use cases, B2B, with its approvals, credit and invoicing, emerges as the next frontier
HSBC Pilots B2B Agentic Payments in Singapore
The pilot comes as HSBC and Google Cloud expect ASEAN digital commerce transaction volume to grow from US$175 billion in 2025 to US$580 billion by 2030.
fintechnews.sgHSBC announced on May 29, 2026, that it had piloted business-to-business agentic payments in Singapore. The pilot demonstrated AI agents automating purchasing and settlement end to end. Mastercard and Juspay served as technology partners.
The transaction began with a corporate buyer at a multinational company. Within a flow connecting the procurement platform SourceSage and the furniture and home-goods e-commerce supplier FortyTwo, digital agents executed everything from ordering to payment. HSBC framed the work as an end-to-end transaction with control, transparency and risk management built in from the start.
This pilot demonstrates how B2B transactions can be executed end-to-end with control, transparency and risk management from the startSource: Winnie Yap (HSBC Singapore)
While consumer-facing agentic commerce has drawn most of the attention, this pilot presents a different angle: transactions between businesses.
B2B and B2C Differ in the Nature of Their Difficulty
Agentic commerce refers to a model in which AI agents autonomously handle searching, comparing, purchasing and paying on a person's behalf. Most reported cases so far have been consumer-facing, with individuals delegating shopping to AI.
B2B purchasing is structurally very different from consumer shopping. Corporate procurement layers together supplier discovery, quote comparison, contract negotiation, purchase-order issuance and delivery tracking. A purchase order is a complex document referencing negotiated contracts, approved vendors, pricing schedules, delivery terms, tax treatment and internal cost centers.
Approval flows are equally involved. The required approver shifts by purchasing category, and a software purchase may need IT security review while legal services require sign-off from the legal department. Financial conditions such as credit limits, payment terms and settlement speed are also baked directly into the purchasing decision itself.
In B2B, payment is not a simple act of paying but a final step intertwined with procurement, credit and invoicing. For an AI agent to handle it, the system must understand not only what something costs but how the transaction is financed, reconciled and reported. The pilot's repeated emphasis on control, transparency and risk management reflects the need to confront this complexity head on.
Ironically, AI-driven shopping already resembles these B2B routines. A consumer shopping agent stacks up many machine-driven judgments before payment, verifying inventory, comparing shipping terms and checking return policies. Agentic commerce turns purchasing from a snap human decision into a final settlement that follows extensive evaluation. It is structurally well matched to long-established B2B buying patterns.
How Mastercard Agent Pay Underpins the Payment
The payment foundation here was Mastercard Agent Pay, announced by Mastercard in April 2025. It is designed as a framework that lets verified AI agents transact on behalf of consumers and businesses.
At its core sits the Agentic Token. The mechanism binds a tokenized card credential to a specific agent, a specific merchant scope and a specific consent policy. This allows a payment to complete without ever exposing the raw card number. Each agent is registered and verified in advance and identified by a unique token, so every transaction is processed in a traceable state.
Mastercard explains that these Agentic Tokens reach beyond everyday shopping to automate and safeguard any transaction, from corporate procurement to optimizing cross-border payment terms. The pilot drew on tokenized payments alongside merchant discovery and referral capabilities. Juspay, which provided the technology infrastructure, joined by extending its Digital Merchant Services partnership with HSBC.
Notably, Mastercard had just completed its first live agentic transaction in Singapore with DBS and UOB in March 2026. That was a consumer case in which an AI agent booked and paid for a ride to Changi Airport. This B2B pilot extends the same Agent Pay framework into corporate transactions.
ASEAN Market Growth Provides the Backdrop
The pilot is set against rapid growth in the Southeast Asian market. HSBC and Google Cloud project that ASEAN digital commerce transaction volume will expand from US$175 billion in 2025 to US$580 billion by 2030. That is more than a threefold increase over five years.
This growth forecast is driving the push into B2B agentic payments. As transaction volumes swell, the burden of processing procurement and payment by hand grows heavier. Automation by AI agents becomes a practical means of handling transactions efficiently in an expanding market.
HSBC is advancing related corporate efforts in parallel. It has extended Digital Merchant Services to India and Singapore and plans to offer mobile virtual cards for corporate customers in Singapore from the end of June 2026. This B2B pilot sits within that broader build-out of corporate digital payments.
Agentic commerce, when powered by Mastercard and delivered with HSBC, addresses complexity directly, establishing that the building blocks are in place
Implications for E-Commerce and Procurement
This pilot is a development that e-commerce and procurement businesses cannot overlook. If AI agents handling ordering and settlement in corporate transactions becomes reality, suppliers will need to respond as well.
Businesses on the supply side will have to rethink their transaction flows on the assumption that AI agents, not human staff, place orders and make payments. Machine-readable product information, accurate pricing and inventory, and mechanisms that accommodate approvals and credit become prerequisites for doing business. The inclusion of an e-commerce supplier like FortyTwo in this transaction shows the change reaches the supply side too.
For the procurement side, the question becomes how far to delegate complex approval flows and credit management to agents. Designs that automate while preserving control and transparency hold the key to adoption. The discussion of agentic commerce has been led by consumer use cases, but the impact of automation is greatest in B2B, where transaction sizes are large. Business-to-business transactions are emerging as the next battleground for agentic commerce.
For a fuller picture of agentic commerce in B2B procurement, see our separate article, "B2B x Agentic Commerce: The Frontline of Automated Procurement and Supplier Negotiation."
Conclusion
The B2B agentic payments pilot in Singapore by HSBC, Mastercard and Juspay points to a new angle that follows consumer use cases. In a transaction connecting a corporate buyer, SourceSage and FortyTwo, an AI agent autonomously executed everything from ordering to settlement.
B2B purchasing differs structurally from consumer shopping in the way approvals, credit and invoicing intertwine. That is precisely why a payment foundation with control, transparency and risk management built in becomes a prerequisite. Mastercard Agent Pay's Agentic Token is the technology underpinning that foundation.
With ASEAN digital commerce projected to reach US$580 billion by 2030, automation in large-scale B2B carries significant weight. E-commerce and procurement businesses are entering a phase of rethinking their setups on the premise that AI agents become transacting parties.
