Ant Group Chairman Eric Jing said AI will increasingly act as a virtual CFO and COO for SMEs as the company expands its work on agentic finance and practical AI tools.

He said many SMEs still lack the skills and manpower to handle complex payment flows, risk checks and cross-border transactions.

“Many SMEs may not have sophisticated digital skills or a large workforce to support them in doing business, and this is where AI agents can really play a role in helping them to navigate the landscape,”

Jing noted.

Speaking at the Singapore Fintech Festival, Jing said Ant Group aims to put AI and tokenisation tools directly in the hands of SMEs. He added that personalised AI financial assistants for consumers are becoming more feasible.

“Agentic AI will act like your COO, your CFO,” he said. “They are stepping in as virtual financial and operational planners and implementers for SMEs, enabling them to compete globally.”

Ant International’s merchant services unit, Antom, is using Antom Copilot to automate payment integration, onboarding, risk settings and chargeback management.

Ant said Copilot cuts integration time by more than 90 percent, improves chargeback winning rates by three percentage points and shortens resolution time by 46 percent.

Antom also launched EPOS360, an app combining POS, payments, banking, lending and growth support for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

Jing said these developments reflect a shift toward agentic payments and multi-agent systems that take on more of the transaction workflow.

He also highlighted Ant International’s work with the Monetary Authority of Singapore on tokenised settlement and AI development.

The company is part of MAS’ Project Guardian, which tests how tokenised money and blockchain-based settlement can support real-time, transparent cross-border payments.

“The tokenisation of money that enables global real-time settlement across borders will be particularly beneficial to SMEs and companies doing global trade,”

he said.

“On such important projects, it is necessary to have policy leadership from regulators like the Monetary Authority of Singapore, who provides institutional clarity and brings together an industry ecosystem of collaboration.”

Ant International is also participating in MAS’ PathFin.ai programme, contributing its Falcon Time-Series Transformer Model, an 8.5-billion-parameter AI model for FX and liquidity forecasting.

Jing said the model has improved cash flow predictions and helped firms reduce hedging costs.

He added that regulatory sandboxes have helped refine products before rollout.

“ They provide the clarity and certainty needed to responsibly deploy cutting-edge technologies while managing risks,”

Jing added.

Ant International, now headquartered in Singapore after becoming independent in 2024, works with more than 1,400 institutional partners and supports payment and digitisation services for 150 million merchants and wallets and national QR schemes serving over 1.8 billion consumer accounts.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by Singapore Fintech Festival via flickr