kakaopay Corp.

Ant International is rolling out its Agentic Mobile Protocol globally, with 10 Alipay+ digital wallets and 7 acquiring partners joining Phase I in 2026. The Phase I wallets, which together serve 1.5 billion user accounts, are Alipay, AlipayHK, DANA, GCash, KakaoPay, MPay, TNG eWallet, TrueMoney, Toss and Starryblu, while the acquiring partners are Adyen, Allinpay, Checkout.com, Fiserv, Global Payments, Nuvei and Worldline. The protocol sits inside the Alipay+ ecosystem, a mobile payment network with more than 50 mobile payment partners, over 10 national QR schemes and more than 2 billion consumer accounts. Ant International, Mastercard and Visa have begun collaborating on a Know-Your-Agent interoperability framework to streamline agent onboarding and identification across networks, working through BuildFin.ai, an industry platform convened by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. AMP, launched in April 2026, is now open-sourced on GitHub with source code, developer SDKs and technical documentation, and it includes AgentSafePay, a money-back guarantee for merchants against agentic-specific risks, and a nano-scale agent-to-agent settlement mechanism handling transactions as small as $0.000001.

Stablecoin issuer Circle announced on July 23 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with South Korean IT giant Kakao Group to collaborate on blockchain-based payment infrastructure and digital asset technology. The two companies will jointly explore the potential use of USD Coin and Circle's global payment network in the South Korean market, evaluating business opportunities such as payments using USDC, clearing and settlement, and connectivity with digital asset services. Kakao Group includes Kakao, which operates the messaging app KakaoTalk, as well as Kakao Pay and KakaoBank, and the partnership will examine possibilities for combining each company's digital platforms and financial services with Circle's blockchain technology. On the same day, Circle also announced similar MOUs with Viva Republica, which operates Toss, and Toss Bank, to explore cooperation on blockchain payment infrastructure and stablecoin technology.