Agentic payments are on our radar

• Alan Ni confirms TNG eWallet is actively exploring agentic payments as the next frontier for Malaysia’s most-used digital wallet.
• The TNG Digital CEO sees Bank Negara’s progressive stance as a signal that the regulatory ground is shifting in the right direction.

On the sidelines of TNG Digital’s Media Briefing 2026, after the cameras had stopped rolling and the formal Q&A had wrapped, TNG eWallet‘s CEO Alan Ni gave away something that didn’t make it into the press release.

Asked whether TNG eWallet would ever consider agentic payments, the emerging model where AI acts autonomously on a user’s behalf to initiate and complete financial transactions, he didn’t hesitate. “Yes, we are certainly considering it.”

It is a short answer with a long tail. Agentic payments represent one of the more consequential shifts coming to consumer fintech: rather than a user opening an app and completing a payment, an AI agent handles the entire flow–finding the best option, authorising the transaction, and confirming the outcome–based on permissions the user has set in advance.

Think of it as the logical endpoint of the search-first, AI-driven UX direction Alan had been describing on stage minutes earlier. He had framed TNG eWallet’s current redesign as the move from the Yahoo age to the Google age. Agentic payments, in that framing, are what come after Google.

“I do believe that’s the direction,” he said. “And I do believe our company’s vision is that we always want to be at the cutting edge of it. So once it really happens, we will be at the front.”

Why TNG eWallet sees agentic payments as inevitable

What made the comment notable was the context Alan attached to it. He didn’t just flag the technology; he flagged the regulator. “I can see Bank Negara is very progressive in this regard,” he said, describing it as one reason TNG Digital feels confident looking seriously at the AI payments space.

To be clear, this is Alan’s reading of the central bank’s disposition, not a statement of BNM policy. But it is worth taking seriously, coming from the CEO of Malaysia’s largest e-wallet operator, who works within the regulatory framework daily. Bank Negara has, in recent years, moved on to open finance consultation, sandbox frameworks for emerging fintech, and a broadly stated commitment to keeping Malaysia’s financial infrastructure competitive regionally.

That trajectory is what Alan appears to be pointing at. “It’s very difficult to predict what’s going to happen six months, twelve months from now,” he acknowledged. “But the direction, I believe, is clear.”

The timing of that belief matters. TNG eWallet has just crossed into profitability for the first time, with non-payment revenue now accounting for more than half of total revenue. The platform has 26 million verified users engaging with it twice a day on average. If agentic payments do arrive in Malaysia’s regulated fintech space, TNG Digital is not positioning itself as a fast follower.

Alan was fairly explicit about that. The Yahoo-to-Google shift he described is already underway inside the app. What he is signalling, quietly, is that the next shift is already on the drawing board.