Sunrate Launches Agentic Card to Enable AI-Driven Business Payments

HONG KONG, Nov. 2, 2026 /CNW/ -- Sunrate, the global payment and treasury management platform, today announced the launch of Sunrate Agentic Card during Hong Kong FinTech Week 2026, a programmable, multi-currency virtual commercial card designed for AI agents to execute payments on behalf of businesses within predefined rules and authorisation frameworks.

Unlike conventional virtual commercial cards designed primarily for human users, Sunrate Agentic Card enables authorised AI agents to create and manage payment instruments, initiate transactions and retrieve payment outcomes while businesses retain control over spending limits, permissions and approval policies. The card has also completed Mastercard Agent Pay certification, providing a foundation for verifiable identity and authorisation for agent-initiated transactions within the Mastercard network.

The launch marks Sunrate's latest step in bringing agentic capabilities into real-world business payment workflows, moving AI from assisting with financial decisions towards executing authorised payment tasks with built-in controls and auditability.

Putting AI Agents Directly into the Payment Workflow

Sunrate Agentic Card is designed to give AI agents access to a controlled payment instrument, allowing them to act on approved business instructions rather than simply provide recommendations.

For use cases including procurement, business travel, marketing expenditure and supplier payments, businesses can generate virtual cards for specific transactions or workflows, set spending limits and define validity periods based on approved policies. Cards can automatically expire once the intended task has been completed.

Within an authorised workflow, AI agents can create cards, configure payment parameters, initiate transactions and retrieve payment outcomes. Businesses can define controls across merchant category, transaction amount, currency, geography and validity period, ensuring that agent-initiated payments remain aligned with internal policies.

Each action is recorded and auditable, giving businesses visibility and control over how payment instructions are created, authorised and executed.

This enables businesses to move from AI-assisted financial workflows towards AI-executed payments, while maintaining human oversight over critical financial decisions.

Designed for Real-World Business Use

The OTA industry is among the early use cases where this model can deliver tangible value.

Global online travel businesses manage marketing expenditure and supplier payments across multiple teams, markets and channels, creating challenges around fragmented spending, policy compliance and budget control.

With Sunrate Agentic Card, an OTA can issue a virtual card for an individual marketing campaign or supplier payment and configure the relevant spending permissions in advance.

During a transaction, AI can monitor spending against predefined rules and risk thresholds, automatically flagging or blocking exceptions, approving transactions that meet policy requirements, or escalating higher-risk transactions for human review.

By combining automated execution with predefined controls, businesses can reduce manual intervention while maintaining oversight of distributed spending.

From Agentic Intelligence to Agentic Payments

The launch builds on Sunrate's broader development of agentic capabilities through Sunrate.AI, its AI initiative focused on bringing intelligent agents into business payment and treasury workflows.

Sunrate.AI currently comprises five specialised agents:

• Payment Agent -- supports payment execution and reconciliation
• FX Agent -- manages foreign exchange operations and conversion optimisation
• Compliance Agent -- supports compliance pre-screening
• Onboarding Agent -- streamlines business onboarding and account access
• Chat Agent -- provides a natural-language interface and coordinates tasks across other agents

Together, these capabilities are designed to support businesses across key stages of cross-border payment and treasury operations.

Sunrate's approach is also informed by its recent collaboration with Mastercard on "Beyond Automation: Defining Agentic Global Payments", a white paper examining the evolution of AI in business payments and identifying practical applications for agentic technology across the payment lifecycle. The white paper was jointly released by Sunrate and Mastercard at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in July.

Li Yilong, Head of AI at Sunrate, said: "The next stage of agentic payments is not simply about allowing AI to make recommendations. It is about giving agents the ability to execute financial tasks within clear boundaries, with the right controls, identity and accountability in place. Sunrate Agentic Card is a step towards making that model practical for businesses, connecting intelligence with the payment infrastructure required to act on it."

Sunrate will continue expanding its agentic payment capabilities across more business and treasury use cases, enabling AI agents to take on increasingly sophisticated financial workflows while keeping businesses firmly in control of authorisation, risk and compliance.

About Sunrate

Sunrate is a leading global payment and treasury management platform for businesses worldwide. Founded in 2016, Sunrate has enabled companies to operate and scale both locally and globally in 190+ countries and regions with its cutting-edge infrastructure, global network, and unified solutions.

Sunrate operates through offices across key markets, including Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London. The company partners with the top global financial institutions, such as Citibank, Standard Chartered, J.P. Morgan. Sunrate is also the principal member of Mastercard and Visa. To learn more about Sunrate, visit https://www.sunrate.com/.

SOURCE Sunrate

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