According to Fortune, Visa announced two new features for its clients in the region: AI-enabled payments and stablecoin settlements. The first feature expands into “agentic commerce,” allowing consumers to use AI-powered agents to handle shopping and payments. Karpin noted that while the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT transformed how people find information, LLM-powered chatbots currently lack the ability to execute payments.
Under this new system, customers can load their Visa cards onto an AI agent, similar to how they use Apple Pay or Google Pay. Users can opt in for “personalization” to receive intelligent shopping recommendations based on their history. The process allows for secure payments directly within the AI platform using tokenization and authentication, completing the online shopping loop.
The second initiative is a stable settlement pilot that permits select partners to pay using stablecoins on supported blockchains. Stablecoins are digital currencies pegged to less volatile assets, most commonly the U.S. dollar. Karpin stated that Visa identified the value of blockchain technology a decade ago and observed that cross-border transactions using stablecoins are currently at an all-time high. He added that Visa intends to make stablecoins a global payment option once the regulatory environment is ready, helping businesses conduct commerce in Web3.
Karpin, who became Asia-Pacific president in 2023 after working with Visa in the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, and Japan for over a decade, noted that the payment space in Asia has changed more in the last five years than in the previous fifty. He pointed to super apps—which consolidate services like food delivery, ride-hailing, and payments—as major disruptors. These apps began in mainland China with Alipay in 2004 and WeChat Pay in 2013, followed by GrabPay in Southeast Asia in 2016.
Instead of viewing these platforms as competition, Visa aims to partner with them to “digitalize the Visa credential.” Karpin highlighted a partnership with Taiwan’s Line Pay, which allows users to travel abroad and pay by scanning QR codes connected to the Visa network.
