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Asia’s shift to digital money has been swift: QR codes, super-apps, and online brokerages have fostered high levels of digital literacy and confidence among consumers. A new phase is now taking shape, as stablecoins reshape cross-border payments, central banks test digital currencies, and payment infrastructure adapts to an agentic future. The promise is faster, cheaper, and more inclusive finance—but it also raises difficult questions around security, fraud, and privacy. Two finance leaders chart the future of digital money, and its impact on consumers, institutions and global markets. 

Zhuoqun Bian, President, Ant Digital Technologies
Benson Wong, Managing Director, Head of Digital, J.P. Morgan Private Bank 
Fang Wang, Executive Editor, Shanghai, Fortune China 

Paying It Forward: What's Next in Digital Finance?

Conferences

Zhou Qing, I want to start with you. Good afternoon. So and has fundamentally reshaped how people across China and Asia pay over the last 10 years. Looking 10 years ahead, how do you see the very act of paying? evolve? Will it become increasingly more invisible embedded into our daily um routines um until we no longer feel we're making transactions at all. Thanks for the question. As I'm from N Group, payment is the DNA of our business, and I'm very famous to talk about the payment. In the past 10 years, I think everybody left home need to carry a wallet. Then after that maybe 5 or 6 years ago we called it e-wallet. Maybe the phone is the is the e-wallet, but now especially in Hangzhou we when we do the payment we just put down the we we tap the machine then boom it's done. So we can say the payment ah is disappeared. We even don't know. To happen and just to just to process this so it's amazing. So, ah, let's looking forward the next 10 years, ah, we see the payment will be invisible invisible because a lot of AIOT there's a biometrics you can use your phone, watch, even your glasses. So, so it's invisible. And they, uh, it also becomes very intelligent. Maybe your agent pay the do the payment on behalf of you. You have the agent. You authorize the agent. The agent has its own wallet, e-wallet, and they have the credit line. They pay buy the things on the line with the with the authorization from your side and ah. Ah, choose the service. Let's imagine if you, ah, if you go to the, it's good to have a vacation, you needed to book the hotel, you needed to, to reserve the table, you needed to have your ticket, air ticket, the train tickets. A lot of things you need to do by yourself in currently, but after, after that, maybe in the following 5 years or maybe only 1 or 2 years, your agents, your steward agents help you do all the stuff. They match the price. They purchase the service. They do a lot of the broth. They just pick, pick the very reasonable good price. For you, it's a, it's such an amazing for a future. There was before that, ah, I have to say, ah, ah, technology need to improve very quickly. AI and the blockchain makes it happen because it's the payment is instant. It's micro. It's 24 24/7 7 days and I think AI is your agent. They, they performed all the activities on behalf of you, but still need a super ledger which is blockchain. They, they record the transaction. Even the transaction is very micro, very ancient. They record on the. on the ladder and I think the infra is AI and blockchain is the info for future payment. That's a very exciting um future we're looking at, but we will come back to Agentic commerce in a while. But I want to return to Benson. Um, you at JPMorgan Private Bank, um, you serve clients who Uh, are managing complex multi-generational wealth across borders. In that environment, how do you see AI augmenting a private banker and where do you draw the line that ensures the final relationship with your clients remains deeply human? Great, that's a great question. And, and firstly, thank you for the opportunity to be here. I, I couldn't agree more with what Duo Chuan had said in relation to AI in the context of payments and I draw the analogy if we look at and I think with technology 10 years is really far. I would just say in however cycles and events. I think we're seeing a change in private banking or frankly investments in general that has historically been more episodic, right, like unique events to something more continuous and integrated in your day to day. So historically you would just check your investments once in a while, maybe talk to your private banker once a month. Now I fully agree that things have to be more continuous. I also think that the accessing of this information is likely gonna be moving away from an atlas world and obviously products are becoming more commoditized in terms of financial products. Fully agree with the trajectory of the, the direction of where this industry is going. With that being said, I think as it pertains to private banking, where we look at differentiation, which I'll come back to why AI can't or would in the context of integration is in private banking. We're differentiated not if we're just pushing a product. If you're just pushing a product, pushing a specific thing, you're being very transactional and that's very commoditized. I think differentiation we're looking at as a business model is one where the answers are not clear cut. To the point about you have a large sale, to the point that you have complex situations, you have succession planning, these are all Trust, judgment, and access that has not been able to be replicated with technology, if you will. And so they would look at this is with AI and relationship management advisors. I don't think it's actually a replacement or displacement of it. I think it's a redistribution of labor. I think what ends up happening is that where it comes to identifying what is the best solution when it comes to thought leadership, providing access, knowing where to provide that service, that's something where that has to be something where the human gets involved. I think then that AI can help the prep work in gathering on the side before there. I also would think that just to not to be remiss, I actually do believe that AI can be in the front facing the client alongside the advisor. We actually at JPMorgan have invested and have rolled out a lot of really great directed client AI capabilities that don't have human in the middle that are reg approved. But I think the important part here is that where our clients demand something that is speed, convenient, low stake information. We should definitely let them deal with AI because that actually has served their benefit where there's trust, judgment, complexity, then those things should definitely be something enabled through digital and managed by a human by a trusted advisor in that contract. It sounds to me that AI is not replacing trust, it's just reallocating it. So, uh, Zhou Qing, let me come back to you, um, more on agentic commerce, uh, that is coming to us. So as AI agents, um, are not just doing recommending, uh, products, um, services. To us, uh, they start to actually purchase, book and pay on our behalf. I wonder what does this mean to merchants and banks, uh, what kind of preparation and technology they have to deploy so that they will eventually one day start to deal with algorithms as their counterparts. Ah, it's a, it's a good question. Um, we are talking about economy, agentic economy, we have to say, ah, actually we are experienced that just like I mentioned in the we are looking forward the the payment may be the payment between the agent agents. We call the agentic payment. Ah, the, the, it's the version we are experienced, but ecos is still needed to catch up or I have to say that the eco ecos had to be replicated this kind of changes. And then when we talk about the ecos, we have to to to reference to ah financial institutions, financial systems, compliance and the regulator and enterprises. All those stakeholders are the ecos participants. So, ah, to from ah from ah a financial institution perspective. Ah, when we initiate the transaction, we have to do the KYC, know your clients, but in the, ah, aging, aging economy, we have to say you need to know your agents. Who's the agent you you you belong to or you get ah properly authorized or you, you, when you, when the agent does things in your mouth, who takes the responsibility. So all these things. to from human to agent. So the technology, especially for new new new agents, 24 hours, 1010 24 hours in the 7 days instant, all the infra need to be improved or rebuilt. The in the in the past few years, all the infra are built for humans, but looking forward. All the infra needs to be rebuilt or enhanced to aging because all the participants may be human, may be aging. You need to know to your to know your agents much more than know your customers. I think it is very important. Technology may technology needs to provide this kind of service to the to the financial institution and the regulatory systems. I said from the it's it's from the financial perspective, but from the enterprises perspective, ah, every company, every business goes to the go to the place that your customer spend the time. 10 years ago maybe website and 5 years ago maybe app. Now you may go to the aging marketplace. So from end of end group or NDT we provided this kind of service to to bring the tech to bring the enterprises the know-how, the skills into Agentic service that agents can find your service through agent marketplace and how to skillize or agentize your business into agent and could be find through the market. So I think it's very important from from from the enterprises prospective they need. to join this kind of the innovation and skills life. They are know-how skills life, their database and make the business into agents and could be find easily find friendly find by other agents. OK, so, ah, Ben, you run a very tight ship on compliance and security, um. So how do you think about AI agents inside that parameter? Um, are AI agents coming to high value payments too? I, um, I, I, I don't know if there's any regulators here, but I just wanna say yes I do run a tight ship, um, but I think, I think the reality of it is that it comes to agents we're all moving away from the pilot phase, so I think a lot of organizations do have some sort of agentech workflow agents if you will, but I think at the end of the day we've never or I personally have never come across a situation where the technology of an agent failed us or rather led to an undesirable outcome. I think at the end of the day it's always around the operating model, the processes, and the compliance, the controls, if you will, and I think the challenge that with Agentech workflows where it's vastly different is if you ask an agent a harness, whatever it is, you ask it an information seeking question. If you answer wrongly, it's not good, but you have an embarrassing moment. If you don't get agentic workflows correct, there are much more vastly scaled impact as that way. And I think that's something at JPMorgan, which we're very intentional about, which is the tone from up top. And I don't mean just the culture of embedding AI. I think that's a given. I think it's actually our intentionality as it pertains to making sure that our infrastructure and processes allow for it. So again, when I use the word infrastructure, people tend to talk about technical infrastructure, data infrastructure. Obviously data has to be clean. Data needs to be in one resort. All those things are given. But even simple things like thinking about, OK, you have 10 different workflows. One of them is agentic, 2 of them are sort of not agentic, semi-aggentic, etc. The whole ecosystem that was mentioned before falls behind and so there's an importance for us to not only get the technology right. The orchestration right and as mentioned before, the governance look, protecting our clients, protecting our clients' wealth, protecting our clients' data is paramount, and I think it's very important that in a gente world all practices of here's a workflow, approve it needs to go away. We're very intentional to have either hired or retrained anyone from legal risk compliance to our technologists to our operations to have a. Workflow by design in all their DNA. So yes, it's automated, but is it explainable? Can you actually be audited? Can you actually explain it? These are all things we've actually gone back. So I think in that context, agentic payment is a very, very important part, but I think it's the journey to help us get to something as high value. All these different steps are things we've done in place to help position ourselves to get there. Mhm. So it sounds to me that uh BNS is. the roads, but Benson JPMorgan is more mindful of the traffic lights. So talking about roads, we're changing gear a little bit. So and has long championed financial inclusion using technology to bring financial services to those previously outside the financial system. In the age of AI, do you see these more technological tools narrowing the access. Um, gap further or will, um, actually, um, technology as some people are worried, uh, actually widen the gap. I think technology is definitely um bridge the gap because yes just as you mentioned, inclusive is our DNA of our business as well and you can imagine that especially JPMorgan is quite it is a private bank and I don't think a lot of people can have their service. Ah, I don't, I cannot say it's expensive, it's reasonable, but a genetic economy aging AI can make this kind of service much more inclusive, much more accessible to to to to people. They are not so wealth, they are, but they still need this kind of service, financial service, insurance service, hair hair care, legal service. They now they can have their agents. They can, they can let their agents uh find the proper service in a very efficient way. Would it be costly for each of us to get an agent? Uh, and I cannot say it's, it's reasonable or less expensive. Because you, you can have your, your service by the agents through the agents. Ah, maybe, maybe in the traditional ways, the service may cost thousands of dollars in a few weeks, in a few weeks, and the result is good. But, ah, but I think normal people maybe not they cannot afford that. They just needed the opinion. They need to just need the information. They just needed the service they can affordable. I think AI can do that. I think so the technology before that. As quite a bridge the difference, bridge the, the, the, the gap. It's it's, it's, we can see, uh, AI and the kind of the, the technology, uh, bring the service, bring the financial services to the normal people. When will the moment arrive when each of us will have our own agent doing all the banking and buying and purchasing and transaction for us? When do you see that day coming? I think it is as soon as possible. I, I believe that. So Benson, AI can make sophisticated insights available to more people, which is another sort of aspect of uh inclusion. But JPMorgan is a private bank. Um, how do you use AI to broaden access without diluting the quality of your service? Thank you. And, and I do wanna, I would agree that our fees are also very reasonable. So, so thank you for that. I I, I think there's a couple of different things. I, I like the analogy, and, and I've always said this before, where the technology is always gonna progress and it should. Innovation should never stop in that way. I think the intentionality around the usage of that technology, how we guard around it is what's really key here. And so for example, a lot of times private equity is something that used to be lack of access. Now it's commoditized, but that doesn't mean that everyone should buy private equity without understanding the checks and balance suitability in that way. And I think as it pertains to financial inclusion, at least from a private bank perspective, that hasn't changed our mentality in that way there. I think the way we look at inclusion as it pertains to clients who need private banking levels of service, I think we've leveraged AI and digital and technology to actually widen people who can engage with us as early as possible. So historically in a lot of private banks, what ends up happening is you have to actually become a client before you get access to a lot of information, get to see what it's like. We've actually recently launched a prospect portal which actually allows people who are not clients yet to actually start having access to our thought leadership, to actually start seeing what it's like in terms of our capabilities, our advice, understanding their portfolio, and that's two things that again for those who want a private bank, they can experience the JPMorgan experience, but equally for those who are not yet but soon to be on their liquidity journey, it's a great access point. I think the second thing I would also say is. The traditional private bank context is you have multi-generational wealth, you have a single decision maker, and usually that single decision maker decides everything. I think with technology and AI, I think the other people and decision makers around that generational wealth, be it the next gen, etc. will have better access. Transparency and ability to get started earlier on the way there. And sorry, last but not least, I would also say that the cost of providing these type of services is going down even though the human element is still there. And so it does allow us to venture to an economic threshold that might be lower than what currently is there, which again includes includes or rather promotes inclusion, but again still ensuring the right guardrails and the right services for our client segments. So the the product you just mentioned, it's like a. Uh, we don't need to be, uh, like ultra high net, uh, I, I think, um, individuals to enjoy absolutely. I think it's, uh, I think it's also by invite only, but I think it's one of those things where instead of relying in the old school pitchbook PowerPoints, PDFs, there's a digital way for people to engage and know what feels what it's like to be a JPMorgan private bank client. I think that's really what people expect nowadays, right? So, uh, whether in the future we'll be dealing with agents or human bankers. I think the task ahead is to build a system that is faster, smarter, more inclusive without losing sight of what makes finance work in the first place, which is trust. Thank you very much. Thank you for this wonderful and insightful conversation. Thank you.

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