Global Fintech corporations Hecto Financial(234340) will ramp up its AI agent payment business, joining the buildout of artificial intelligence (AI) payment standards after its work on a global stablecoin payment network.
Hecto Financial joined the x402 Foundation, comprised of leading global digital finance and Blockchain corporations. The x402 Foundation is an open-source project building a global payment standard for AI agent payments. x402 is a payment protocol that enables AI agents to carry out payments and transactions with stablecoins without human intervention.
Hecto Financial plans to secure a next-generation AI payment infrastructure by combining traditional finance infrastructure such as payments and settlement, a global stablecoin payment network, and AI payment standards, enabling AI agents to handle everything from product purchases to service use.
The company completed a proof of concept (PoC) last month for AI agent payment technology based on Google's AI agent payment specification, AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol), and will push for commercialization in the third quarter.
After commercialization, the company plans to expand the base of the AI commerce market by providing AI payment infrastructure to small business owners and small and midsize sellers, who may find it difficult to respond on their own to an AI commerce environment, creating conditions that make it easy to adopt AI agent payments.
Choi Jong-won, CEO of Hecto Financial, said, "We will continue to advance AI payment infrastructure based on global standards to create an environment where anyone—from major platforms to small business owners—can participate in AI commerce."