t54 Partners with Hecto Financial to Explore AI Agent Payments

Hecto Financial provides payment, banking and cross-border settlement infrastructure for businesses. It has previously announced the completion of a proof of concept based on AP2, a payment specification for AI agents, as well as its participation in the x402 AI payment standard ecosystem.

When an AI agent searches for products and requests a payment on someone's behalf, the payment provider needs to understand the identity and authority behind that request. The proposed collaboration will examine how these checks could fit into Hecto's payment infrastructure.

“As AI agents become involved in everything from product discovery to purchase, it is important to ensure transaction trustworthiness alongside a convenient payment experience.

“Through our collaboration with t54, we will explore approaches to agent identity verification and transaction risk management that are suited to our payment infrastructure.”

— Jong-won Choi, CEO of Hecto Financial

The primary platforms under consideration are Hecto Financial's AI Payment Platform, which is currently under development, and Trustline, our agent transaction risk management platform.

The initial focus will be assessing the feasibility of applying Know Your Agent (KYA) verification to agent identities on Hecto Financial's AI Payment Platform. We plan to expand the discussions to evaluating whether agent-requested transactions align with users' intentions and fall within authorized limits before payment execution.

Trustline evaluates agent identity, delegated authority and transaction context. Our work with Hecto will explore how these capabilities could support payments requested by agents on behalf of users.

“Agent payments require more than a payment method; they also require a process for verifying that the authority granted to an agent aligns with the actual transaction.

“Together with Hecto Financial, we will explore a trust framework that can be applied to existing payment infrastructure.”

— Chandler Fang, co-founder of t54

The discussions will also cover potential use cases involving x402 and stablecoins, including payment environments that connect merchants with AI agents.

Through working-level discussions, we'll define initial use cases, technical integration points and the scope of validation. Specific integration methods and any beta program participation will be determined through subsequent discussions.

Learn more about Trustline.

Hecto Financial provides payment and banking services for businesses, including payment processing, cross-border settlement, remittance and foreign exchange. Based in South Korea, it connects businesses with payment methods and banking networks across domestic and international markets.

t54 Labs is building the trust layer for the agentic economy. It provides risk and underwriting infrastructure that helps institutions and applications verify agent identity and intent, assess transaction and counterparty risk before money moves, and preserve evidence for compliance and accountability. t54 also develops agentic financial infrastructure that brings these controls to the protocols and financial rails where agents transact.