Airwallex has upgraded its Agentic Business Accounts to support AI agents in carrying out corporate finance tasks within rules, permissions and approval controls set by businesses.
The accounts can connect with Airwallex’s AI assistant, Kai, or another preferred AI agent. These agents can support tasks such as moving money, managing foreign exchange exposure, rebalancing liquidity and putting idle cash to work.
Businesses can also manage multiple entities, accounts and currencies through a single organisation account experience. They can create dedicated accounts for different purposes and move funds between accounts or externally.
Airwallex said the offering is designed to support businesses as AI agents move beyond analysing financial information and making recommendations towards carrying out financial tasks.
From transactions to outcomes
Jack Zhang, Co-founder and CEO of Airwallex, wrote in a recent blog post that the shift towards agentic banking could change how companies manage money across their operations.
“The unit of work shifts from transaction to outcome,”
Zhang wrote.
Instead of instructing a system to complete individual transactions, finance teams could set broader objectives, such as keeping several months of supplier payments funded while maintaining a minimum cash buffer across entities.
Businesses would continue to define their objectives, rules, approval requirements and situations where a person needs to intervene.
The agent would then determine and execute the steps required within those parameters.
Zhang described this as a move from periodic financial management towards continuous operations, which he refers to as “agentic speed.”
An AI agent continuously monitors a company’s finances, decides what action to take, acts within established controls and reconciles the result.
Zhang summarised the process as: observe, decide, act, reconcile and repeat.
AI agents could also manage liquidity between entities.
If a US entity holds excess cash while a UK entity is running low and a large euro payment is approaching, an agent could move funds to the UK, convert only the amount required and leave the remaining cash available for other uses.
Infrastructure for agentic banking
Zhang said the effectiveness of these workflows depends on the underlying financial infrastructure.
AI agents need visibility across entities, currencies and markets, as well as the ability to move funds between them without losing context across disconnected systems.
He said this requires infrastructure covering areas such as regulatory licenses, local payment network integrations, security and permission systems that allow businesses to retain control over financial activity.
Airwallex currently holds 89 licenses and permits globally and has spent the past decade building its international financial infrastructure.
The company is now adding AI capabilities across this infrastructure, with Agentic Business Accounts forming part of its broader push into agentic banking.
Zhang said agentic banking would not arrive all at once, but the shift from individual transactions towards broader outcomes and from periodic to continuous financial operations has already begun.
Featured image credit: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by starmultikharisma via Magnific
